V 


PHILO-JUDjEUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 


PHILO-JUD^US 

OF  ALEXANDRIA 


BY 

NORMAN  BENTWICH 

Sometime  Scholar  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge 


PHILADELPHIA 

THE  JEWISH  PUBLICATION  SOCIETY  OF  AMERICA 
1910 


COPYRIGHT,  1910,  BY 
THE  JEWISH  PUBLICATION  SOCIETY  OF  AMERICA 


TO  MY  MOTHER 


2092983 


PEEFACE 

It  is  a  melancholy  reflection  upon  the  history  of  the 
Jews  that  they  have  failed  to  pay  due  honor  to  their 
two  greatest  philosophers.  Spinoza  was  rejected  by  his 
contemporaries  from  the  congregation  of  Israel ;  Philo- 
Judaeus  was  neglected  by  the  generations  that  followed 
him.  Maimonides,  our  third  philosopher,  was  in  dan- 
ger of  meeting  the  same  fate,  and  his  philosophical 
work  was  for  long  viewed  with  suspicion  by  a  large 
part  of  the  community.  Philosophers,  by  the  very  ex- 
cellence of  their  thought,  have  in  all  races  towered 
above  the  comprehension  of  the  people,  and  aroused 
the  suspicion  of  the  religious  teachers.  Elsewhere, 
however,  though  rejected  by  the  Church,  they  have  left 
their  influence  upon  the  nation,  and  taken  a  command- 
ing place  in  its  history,  because  they  have  founded 
secular  schools  of  thought,  which  perpetuated  their 
work.  In  Judaism,  where  religion  and  nationality 
are  inextricably  combined,  that  could  not  be.  The 
history  of  Judaism  since  the  extinction  of  political 
independence  is  the  history  of  a  national  religious 
culture;  what  was  national  in  its  thought  alone 
found  favor;  and  unless  a  philosopher's  work  bore 
this  national  religious  stamp  it  dropped  out  of  Jew- 
ish history. 

Philo  certainly  had  an  intensely  strong  Jewish 
feeling,  but  his  work  had  also  another  aspect,  which 


8  PREFACE 

•was  seized  upon  and  made  use  of  by  those  who  wished 
to  denationalize  Judaism  and  convert  it  into  a  philo- 
sophical monotheism.  The  favor  which  the  Church 
Fathers  showed  to  his  writings  induced  and  was  bal- 
anced by  the  neglect  of  the  rabbis. 

It  was  left  till  recently  to  non-Jews  to  study  the 
works  of  Philo,  to  present  his  philosophy,  and  esti- 
mate its  value.  So  far  from  taking  a  Jewish  stand- 
point in  their  work,  they  emphasized  the  parts  of  his 
teaching  that  are  least  Jewish ;  for  they  were  writing 
as  Christian  theologians  or  as  historians  of  Greek 
philosophy.  They  searched  him  primarily  for  traces 
of  Christian,  neo-Platonic,  or  Stoic  doctrines,  and 
commiserated  with  him,  or  criticised  him  as  a  weak- 
kneed  eclectic,  a  half-blind  groper  for  the  true  light. 

Even  during  the  last  hundred  years,  which  have 
marked  a  revival  of  the  historical  consciousness  of  the 
Jews,  as  of  all  peoples,  it  has  still  been  left  in  the 
main  to  non-Jewish  scholars  to  write  of  Philo  in  re- 
lation to  his  time  and  his  environment.  The  purpose 
of  this  little  book  is  frankly  to  give  a  presentation  of 
Philo  from  the  Jewish  standpoint.  I  hold  that  Philo 
is  essentially  and  splendidly  a  Jew,  and  that  his 
thought  is  through  and  through  Jewish.  The  sur- 
name given  him  in  the  second  century,  "Judasus," 
not  only  distinguishes  him  from  an  obscure  Christian 
bishop,  but  it  expresses  the  predominant  characteris- 
tic of  his  teaching.  It  may  be  objected  that  I  have 
pointed  the  moral  and  adorned  the  tale  in  accordance 
with  preconceived  opinions,  which — as  Mr.  Claude 


PEEFACE  9 

Montefiore  says  in  his  essay  on  Philo— it  is  easy  to  do 
with  so  strange  and  curious  a  writer.  I  confess  that 
my  worthy  appeals  to  me  most  strongly  as  an  expo- 
nent of  Judaism,  and  it  may  be  that  in  this  regard  I 
have  not  always  looked  on  him  as  the  calm,  dispas- 
sionate student  should;  for  I  experience  towards  him 
that  warmth  of  feeling  which  his  name,  $tt<ov, 
"  the  beloved  one,"  suggests.  But  I  have  tried  so  to 
write  this  biography  as  neither  to  show  partiality  on 
the  one  side  nor  impartiality  on  the  other.  If  never- 
theless I  have  exaggerated  the  Jewishness  of  my 
worthy's  thought,  my  excuse  must  be  that  my  prede- 
cessors have  so  often  exaggerated  other  aspects  of  his 
teaching  that  it  was  necessary  to  call  a  new  picture 
into  being,  in  order  to  redress  the  balance  of  the  old. 
Although  I  have  to  some  extent  taken  a  line  of  my 
own  in  this  Life,  my  obligations  to  previous  writers 
upon  Philo  are  very  great.  I  have  used  freely  the 
works  of  Drummond,  Schurer,  Massebieau,  Zeller, 
Conybeare,  Cohn,  and  Wendland;  and  among  those 
who  have  treated  of  Philo  in  relation  to  Jewish  tradi- 
tion I  have  read  and  borrowed  from  Siegfried  (Philon 
als  Ausleger  der  heiligen  Schrift),  Freudenthal 
(Hellenistische  Studien},  Eitter  (Philo  und  die  Halar 
cha),  and  Mr.  Claude  Montefiore's  Florilegium  Phi- 
lonis,  which  is  printed  in  the  seventh  volume  of  the 
Jewish  Quarterly  Eeview.  Once  for  all  Mr.  Montefi- 
ore has  selected  many  of  the  most  beautiful  and  most 
vital  passages  of  Philo,  and  much  as  I  should  have 
liked  to  unearth  new  gems,  as  beautiful  and  as  illumi- 


10  PREFACE 

nating,  I  have  often  found  myself  irresistibly  at- 
tracted to  Mr.  Montefiore's  passages.  Dr.  Neumark's 
book,  Geschiclite  der  jiidischen  Philosophie  des 
Mittelalters,  appeared  after  my  manuscript  was  set 
up,  or  I  should  have  dealt  with  his  treatment  of  Philo. 
With  what  he  says  of  the  relation  of  Plato  to  Judaism 
I  am  in  great  part  in  agreement,  and  I  had  independ- 
ently come  to  the  conclusion  that  Plato  was  the  main 
Greek  influence  on  Philo's  thought. 

To  these  various  books  I  owe  much,  but  not  so 
much  as  to  the  teaching,  influence,  and  help  of  one 
whose  name  I  have  not  the  boldness  to  associate  with 
this  little  volume,  but  whose  notes  on  my  manuscript 
have  given  it  whatever  value  it  may  possess.  The 
index  I  owe  to  the  kindly  help  of  a  sister,  who  would 
also  be  nameless.  Lastly  I  have  to  thank  Dr.  Lionel 
Barnett,  professor  of  Sanscrit  at  University  College, 
London,  and  my  father,  who  read  my  manuscript 
before  it  was  sent  to  the  printers.  The  one  gave  me 
the  benefit  of  his  wide  and  accurate  scholarship,  the 
other  gave  me  much  valuable  advice  and  removed 
many  a  blazing  indiscretion. 

NORMAN  BENTWICH. 
February  28,  1907. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.  THE  JEWISH  COMMUNITY  AT  ALEXANDRIA 13 

II.  THE  LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  PHILO 44 

III.  PHILO'S  WORKS  AND  METHOD 74 

IV.  PHILO  AND  THE  TORAH 104 

V.  PHILO'S  THEOLOGY  132 

VI.     PHILO  AS  A  PHILOSOPHER 167 

VII.     PHILO  AND  JEWISH  TRADITION 199 

VIII.     THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PHILO 242 

BIBLIOGRAPHY    263 

ABBREVIATIONS  USED  FOB  THE  REFERENCES 266 

INDEX  .  269 


PHILO-JUD/EUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 


THE  JEWISH  COMMUNITY  AT 
ALEXANDKIA 

The  three  great  world-conquerors  known  to  his- 
tory, Alexander,  Julius  CaBsar,  and  Napoleon,  recog- 
nized the  pre-eminent  value  of  the  Jew  as  a  bond  of 
empire,  an  intermediary  between  the  heterogeneous 
nations  which  they  brought  beneath  their  sway.  Each 
in  turn  showed  favor  to  his  religion,  and  accorded 
him  political  privileges.  The  petty  tyrants  of  all 
ages  have  persecuted  Jews  on  the  plea  of  securing 
uniformity  among  their  subjects;  but  the  great  con- 
queror-statesmen who  have  made  history,  realizing 
that  progress  is  brought  about  by  unity  in  difference, 
have  recognized  in  Jewish  individuality  a  force  mak- 
ing for  progress.  Whereas  the  pure  Hellenes  had 
put  all  the  other  peoples  of  the  world  in  the  single 
category  of  barbarians,  their  Macedonian  conqueror 
forced  upon  them  a  broader  view,  and,  regarding  his 
empire  as  a  world-state,  made  Greeks  and  Orientals 
live  together,  and  prepared  the  way  for  a  mingling 
of  races  and  culture.  Alexander  the  Great  became  a 
notable  figure  in  the  Talmud  and  Midrashim,  and 
many  a  marvellous  legend  was  told  about  his  passing 


14      PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDKIA 

visit  to  Jerusalem  during  his  march  to  Egypt.1  The 
high  priest — whether  it  was  Jaddua,  Simon,  or  Onias 
the  records  do  not  make  clear — is  said  to  have  gone 
out  to  meet  him,  and  to  have  compelled  the  reverence 
and  homage  of  the  monarch  by  the  majesty  of  his 
presence  and  the  lustre  of  his  robes.  Be  this  as  it  may, 
it  is  certain  that  Alexander  settled  a  considerable  num- 
ber of  Jews  in  the  Greek  colonies  which  he  founded  as 
centres  of  cosmopolitan  culture  in  his  empire,  and 
especially  in  the  town  by  the  mouth  of  the  Nile  that 
received  his  own  name,  and  was  destined  to  become 
within  two  centuries  the  second  town  in  the  world; 
second  only  to  Eome  in  population  and  power,  equal 
to  it  in  culture.  By  its  geographical  position,  the 
nature  of  its  foundation,  and  the  sources  of  its  popu- 
lation, and  by  the  wonderful  organization  of  its  Mu- 
seum, in  which  the  records  of  all  nations  were  stored 
and  studied,  Alexandria  was  fitted  to  become  the 
meeting-place  of  civilizations. 

There  was  already  a  considerable  settlement  of 
Jews  in  Egypt  before  Alexander's  transplantation  in 
332  B.  c.  E.  Throughout  Bible  times  the  connection 
between  Israel  and  Egypt  had  been  close.  Isaiah 
speaks  of  the  day  when  five  cities  in  the  land  of 
Egypt  should  speak  the  language  of  Canaan  and 
swear  to  the  Lord  of  hosts  (xix.  18) ;  and  when 
Nebuchadnezzar  led  away  the  first  captivity,  many  of 
the  people  had  fled  from  Palestine  to  the  old  "  cradle 
of  the  nation."  Jeremiah  (xliv)  went  down  with  them 

1  Comp.  Leviticus  Rabba  13. 


THE  COMMUNITY  AT  ALEXANDKIA    15 

to  prophesy  against  their  idolatrous  practices  and 
their  backslidings ;  and  Jewish  and  Christian  writers 
in  later  times,  daring  boldly  against  chronology,  told 
how  Plato,  visiting  Egypt,  had  heard  Jeremiah  and 
learnt  from  him  his  lofty  monotheism.  Doubt  was 
thrown  in  the  last  century  upon  the  continuance  of 
the  Diaspora  in  Egypt  between  the  time  of  Jeremiah 
and  Alexander,  but  the  recent  discovery  of  a  Jewish 
temple  at  Elephantine  and  of  Aramaic  papyri  at 
Assouan  dated  in  the  fifth  and  fourth  centuries 
B.  c.  E.  has  proved  that  these  doubts  were  not  well 
founded,  and  that  there  was  a  well-established  com- 
munity during  the  interval. 

From  the  time  of  the  post-exilic  prophets  Judaism 
developed  in  three  main  streams,  one  flowing  from  Je- 
rusalem, another  from  Babylon,  the  third  from  Egypt. 
Alexandria  soon  took  precedence  of  existing  settle- 
ments of  Jews,  and  became  a  great  centre  of  Jewish 
life.  The  first  Ptolemy,  to  whom  at  the  dismember- 
ment of  Alexander's  empire  Egypt  had  fallen,1  con- 
tinued to  the  Jewish  settlers  the  privileges  of  full  citi- 
zenship which  Alexander  had  granted  them.  He  in- 
creased also  the  number  of  Jewish  inhabitants,  for 
following  his  conquest  of  Palestine  (or  Ccele-Syria,  as 
it  was  then  called),  he  brought  back  to  his  capital  a 
large  number  of  Jewish  families  and  settled  thirty 
thousand  Jewish  soldiers  in  garrisons.  For  the  next 
hundred  years  the  Palestinian  and  Egyptian  Jews  were 
under  the  same  rule,  and  for  the  most  part  the  Ptole- 

.  Josephus,  Ant.  IX.  1. 


16      PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

mies  treated  them  well.  They  were  easy-going  and 
tolerant,  and  while  they  encouraged  the  higher  forms 
of  Greek  culture,  art,  letters,  and  philosophy,  both  at 
their  own  court  and  through  their  dominions,  they 
made  no  attempt  to  impose  on  their  subjects  the 
Greek  religion  and  ceremonial.  Under  their  tolerant 
sway  the  Jewish  community  thrived,  and  became  dis- 
tinguished in  the  handicrafts  as  well  as  in  commerce. 
Two  of  the  five  sections  into  which  Alexandria  waa 
divided  were  almost  exclusively  occupied  by  them; 
these  lay  in  the  north-east  along  the  shore  and  near 
the  royal  palace — a  favorable  situation  for  the  large 
commercial  enterprises  in  which  they  were  engaged. 
The  Jews  had  full  permission  to  carry  on  their  re- 
ligious observances,  and  besides  many  smaller  places 
of  worship,  each  marked  by  its  surrounding  planta- 
tion of  trees,  they  built  a  great  synagogue,  of  which 
it  is  said  in  the  Talmud,  "  He  who  has  not  seen  it  has 
not  seen  the  glory  of  Israel/' l  It  was  in  the  form  of 
a  basilica,  with  a  double  row  of  columns,  and  so  vast 
that  an  official  standing  upon  a  platform  had  to  wave 
his  head-cloth  or  veil  to  inform  the  people  at  the  back 
of  the  edifice  when  to  say  "Amen"  in  response  to 
the  Reader.  The  congregation  was  seated  according  to 
trade-guilds,  as  was  also  customary  during  the  Middle 
Ages;  the  goldsmiths,  silversmiths,  coppersmiths,  and 
weavers  had  their  own  places,  for  the  Alexandrian 
Jews  seem  to  have  partially  adopted  the  Egyptian 
caste-system.  The  Jews  enjoyed  a  large  amount  of 

1  Sukkah  51b. 


THE  COMMUNITY  AT  ALEXANDRIA    17 

self-government,  having  their  own  governor,  the  eth- 
narch,  and  in  Roman  times  their  own  council  (San- 
hedrin),  which  administered  their  own  code  of  laws. 
Of  the  ethnarch  Strabo  says  that  he  was  like  an  inde- 
pendent ruler,  and  it  was  his  function  to  secure  the 
proper  fulfilment  of  duties  by  the  community  and 
compliance  with  their  peculiar  laws.1  Thus  the  people 
formed  a  sort  of  state  within  a  state,  preserving  their 
national  life  in  the  foreign  environment.  They  pos- 
sessed as  much  political  independence  as  the  Palestin- 
ian community  when  under  Roman  rule ;  and  enjoyed 
all  the  advantages  without  any  of  the  narrowing  influ- 
ences, physical  or  intellectual,  of  a  ghetto.  They  were 
able  to  remain  an  independent  body,  and  foster  a  Jew- 
ish spirit,  a  Jewish  view  of  life,  a  Jewish  culture, 
while  at  the  same  time  they  assimilated  the  different 
culture  of  the  Greeks  around  them,  and  took  their 
part  in  the  general  social  and  political  life. 

At  the  end  of  the  third  and  the  beginning  of  the 
second  century  Palestine  was  a  shuttlecock  tossed 
between  the  Ptolemies  and  the  Seleucids;  but  in  the 
reign  of  Antiochus  Epiphanes  (c.  150  B.  c.  E.)  it 
finally  passed  out  of  the  power  of  the  Ptolemaic  house, 
and  from  this  time  the  Palestinian  Jews  had  a  differ- 
ent political  history  from  the  Egyptian.  The  com- 
pulsory Hellenization  by  Antiochus  aroused  the  best 
elements  of  the  Jewish  nation,  which  had  seemed 
likely  to  lose  by  a  gradual  assimilation  its  adherence  to 
pure  monotheism  and  the  Mosaic  law.  The  struggle  of 

1  Quoted  by  Josephus,  Ant.  XIV.  7. 


18      PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXAXDEIA 

Judas  Maccabaeus  was  not  so  much  against  an  external 
foe  as  against  the  Hellenizing  party  of  his  own 
people,  which,  led  by  the  high  priests  Jason,  Mene- 
laus,  and  Alcimus,  tried  to  crush  both  the  national 
and  the  religious  spirit.  The  Maccabaean  rule  brought 
not  only  a  renaissance  of  national  life  and  national 
culture,  but  also  a  revival  of  the  national  reli- 
gion. Before,  however,  the  deliverance  of  the  Jews 
had  been  accomplished  by  the  noble  band  of  brothers, 
many  of  the  faithful  Palestinian  families  had  fled  for 
protection  from  the  tyranny  of  Antiochus  to  the 
refuge  of  his  enemy  Ptolemy  Philometor.  Among 
the  fugitives  were  Onias  and  Dositheus,  who,  accord- 
ing to  Josephus,1  became  the  trusted  leaders  of  the 
armies  of  the  Egyptian  monarch.  Onias,  moreover, 
was  the  rightful  successor  to  the  high-priesthood,  and 
despairing  of  obtaining  his  dignity  in  Jerusalem, 
where  the  office  had  been  given  to  the  worthless  Hel- 
lenist Alcimus,  he  conceived  the  idea  of  setting  up  a 
local  centre  of  the  Jewish  religion  in  the  country  of 
his  exile.  He  persuaded  Ptolemy  to  grant  him  a  piece 
of  territory  upon  which  he  might  build  a  temple  for 
Jewish  worship,  assuring  him  that  his  action  would 
have  the  effect  of  securing  forever  the  loyalty  of  his 
Jewish  subjects.  'Ptolemy  "gave  him  a  place  one 
hundred  and  eighty  furlongs  distant  from  Memphis, 
in  the  nomos  of  Heliopolis,  where  he  built  a  fortress 
and  a  temple,  not  like  that  at  Jerusalem,  but  such  as 

1  Ant.  XII.  5,  9,  XX.  10. 


THE  COMMUNITY  AT  ALEXAKDKIA    19 

resembled  a  tower." 1  Professor  Flinders  Petrie  has 
recently  discovered  remains  at  Tell-el-Yehoudiyeh, 
the  "  mound  of  the  Jews,"  near  the  ancient  Leontopo- 
lis,  which  tally  with  the  description  of  Josephus,  and 
may  be  presumed  to  be  the  ruins  of  the  temple. 

It  is  difficult  to  arrive  at  an  accurate  idea  of  the 
nature  and  importance  of  the  Onias  temple,  because 
our  chief  authority,  Josephus,2  gives  two  inconsistent 
accounts  of  it,  and  the  Talmud  references 8  are 
equally  involved.  But  certain  negative  facts  are 
clear.  First,  the  temple  did  not  become,  even  if  it 
were  designed  to  be,  a  rival  to  the  temple  of  Jerusa- 
lem :  it  did  not  diminish  in  any  way  the  tribute  which 
the  Egyptian  Jews  paid  to  the  sacred  centre  of  the 
religion.  They  did  not  cease  to  send  their  tithes  for 
the  benefit  of  the  poor  in  Judaea,  or  their  representa- 
tives to  the  great  festivals,  and  they  dispatched  mes- 
sengers each  year  with  contributions  of  gold  and  sil- 
ver, who,  says  Philo,4  "  travelled  over  almost  impass- 
able roads,  which  they  looked  upon  as  easy,  in  that 
they  led  them  to  piety."  The  Alexandrian-Jewish 
writers,  without  exception,  are  silent  about  the  work  of 
Onias ;  Philo  does  not  give  a  single  hint  of  it,  and  on 
the  other  hand  speaks5  several  times  of  the  great 

| 

1  Josephus,  Bell.  Jud.  VII.  10. 

3  Comp.  the  passages  in  the  "  Antiquities  "  above  and 
the  Bell.  Jud.  V.  5. 

•Menahot  109,  Abodah  Zarah  52b. 

'De  Leg.  II.  578. 

5  Comp.  De  Mon.  I.  5. 


20      PHILO-JUDyEUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

national  centre  at  Jerusalem  as  "  the  most  beauti- 
ful and  renowned  temple  which  is  honored  by  the 
whole  East  and  West."  The  Egyptian  Jews,  accord- 
ing to  Josephus,  claimed  that  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah 
had  been  accomplished,  "  that  there  shall  be  an  altar 
to  the  Lord  in  the  midst  of  the  land  of  Egypt"  (Is. 
xix.  19) .  But  the  altar,  it  has  recently  been  suggested,1 
was  rather  a  "  Bamah  "  (a  high  place)  than  a  temple. 
It  served  as  a  temporary  sanctuary  while  the  Jeru- 
salem temple  was  denied,  and  afterwards  it  was  a 
place  where  the  priestly  ritual  was  carried  out  day  by 
day,  and  offerings  were  brought  by  those  who  could 
not  make  the  pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem.  Though  the 
synagogue  was  the  main  seat  of  religious  life  in  the 
Diaspora,  there  was  still  a  desire  for  the  sacrificial 
worship,  and  for  a  long  time  the  rabbis  looked  with 
favor  upon  the  establishment  of  Onias.  But  when 
the  tendency  to  found  a  new  ritual  there  showed 
itself,  they  denied  its  holiness."  The  religious  im- 
portance of  the  temple,  however,  was  never  great,  and 
its  chief  interest  is  that  it  shows  the  survival  of  the 
affection  for  the  priestly  service  among  the  Hellenized 
community,  and  helps  therefore  to  disprove  the  myth 
that  the  Alexandrians  allegorized  away  the  Levitical 
laws. 

During  the  checkered  history  of  Egypt  in  the  first 
century  B.  c.  E.,  when  it  was  in  turn  the  plaything  of 
the  corrupt  Roman  Senate,  who  supported  the  claims 

'Dr.  Hirsch,  in  The  Jews'  College  Jubilee  Volume,  p. 
39. 
*  Menahot  119. 


THE  COMMUNITY  AT  ALEXANDRIA    21 

of  a  series  of  feeble  puppet-Ptolemies,  the  prize  of  the 
warriors,  who  successively  aspired  to  be  masters  of  the 
world,  Julius  Caesar,  Mark  Anton}7,  and  Octavian, 
and  finally  a  province  of  the  Roman  Empire,  the 
political  and  material  prosperity  of  the  Alexandrian 
Jews  remained  for  the  most  part  undisturbed.  Julius 
Caesar  and  Augustus,  who  everywhere  showed  special 
favor  to  their  Jewish  subjects,  confirmed  the  privi- 
leges of  full  citizenship  and  limited  self-government 
which  the  early  Ptolemies  had  bestowed.1  Josephus 
records  a  letter  of  Augustus  to  the  Jewish  community 
at  Gyrene,  in  which  he  ordains :  "  Since  the  nation 
of  the  Jews  hath  been  found  grateful  to  the  Roman 
people,  it  seemed  good  to  me  and  my  counsellors  that 
the  Jews  have  liberty  to  make  itee  of  their  own  cus- 
toms, and  that  their  sacred  money  be  not  touched,  but 
sent  to  Jerusalem,  and  that  they  be  not  obliged  to  go 
before  the  judge  on  the  Sabbath  day  nor  on  the  day 
of  preparation  for  it  after  the  ninth  hour,"  i.  e.,  after 
the  early  evening.2  This  decree  is  typical  of  the 
emperor's  attitude  to  his  Jewish  subjects;  and  Egypt 
became  more  and  more  a  favored  home  of  the  race,  so 
that  the  Jewish  population  in  the  land,  from  the 
Libyan  desert  to  the  border  of  Ethiopia,  was  estimated 
in  Philo's  time  at  not  less  than  one  million.' 

The  prosperity  and  privileges  of  the  Jews,  combined 
witH  their  peculiar  customs  and  their  religious  sep- 

1  Comp.  Ant.  XIV.  14-16. 

'Ant.  XVI.  7. 

"  Philo,  In  Flacc.  6. 


22      PHILO-JUD^US  'OF  ALEXANDRIA 

arateness,  did  not  fail  at  Alexandria,  as  they  have 
not  failed  in  any  country  of  the  Diaspora,  to  arouse 
the  mixed  envy  and  dislike  of  the  rude  populace,  and 
give  a  handle  to  the  agitations  of  self-seeking  dema- 
gogues. The  third  book  of  the  Maccabees  tells  of  a 
Ptolemaic  persecution  during  which  Jewish  victims 
were  turned  into  the  arena  at  Alexandria,  to  be  trod- 
den down  by  elephants  made  fierce  with  the  blood  of 
grapes,  and  of  their  deliverance  by  Divine  Providence. 
Some  fiction  is  certainly  mixed  with  this  recital,  but 
it  may  well  be  that  during  the  rule  of  the  stupid  and 
cruel  usurper  Ptolemy  Physcon  (c.  120  B.  c.  E.)  the 
protection  of  the  royal  house  was  for  political  reasons 
removed  for  a  time  from  the  Jews.  Josephus  *  relates 
that  the  anniversary  of  the  deliverance  was  celebrated 
as  a  festival  in  Egypt.  The  popular  feeling  against 
the  peculiar  people  was  of  an  abiding  character,  for  it 
had  abiding  causes,  envy  and  dislike  of  a  separate 
manner  of  life;  and  the  professional  anti-Semite,2  who 
had  his  forerunners  before  the  reign  of  the  first  Ptol- 
emy, was  able  from  time  to  time  to  fan  popular  feel- 
ings into  flame.  In  those  days,  when  history  and  fic- 
tion were  not  clearly  distinguished,  he  was  apt  to 
hide  his  attacks  under  the  guise  of  history,  and  stir  up 
odium  by  scurrilous  and  offensive  accounts  of  the 
ancient  Hebrews.  Hence  anti-Jewish  literature  origi- 
nated at  Alexandria. 

1  C.  Apion.  II.  5. 

2  I  have  used  the  word  anti-Semite  because,  though  the 
hatred  at  Alexandria  was  not  racial,  but  national,  it  has 
now  become  synonymous  with  Jew-hater  generally. 


THE  COMMUNITY  AT  ALEXANDKIA    23 

Manetho,  an  historian  of  the  second  century  B.  c.  E., 
in  his  chronicles  of  Egypt,  introduced  an  anti-Jewish 
pamphlet  with  an  original  account  of  the  Exodus, 
which  became  the  model  for  a  school  of  scribes  more 
virulent  and  less  distinguished  than  himself.  The 
Battle  of  Histories  was  taken  up  with  spirit  by  the 
Jews,  and  it  was  round  the  history  of  the  Israelites 
in  Egypt  that  the  conflict  chiefly  raged.  In  reply 
to  the  offensive  picture  of  ^Manetho  and  the  diatribes 
of  some  "starveling  GreeMing,"  there  appeared  the 
eulogistic  picture  of  an  Ansteas,  the  improved  Exodus 
of  an  Artapanus.  Joseph  and  Moses  figured  as  the 
most  brilliant  of  Egyptian  statesmen,  and  the  Ptole- 
mies as  admirers  of  the  Scriptures.  The  morality  of 
this  apologetic  literature,  and  more  particularly  of 
the  literary  forgeries  which  formed  part  of  it,  has  been 
impugned  by  certain  German  theologians.  But  apart 
from  the  necessities  of  the  case,  it  is  not  fair  to  apply 
to  an  age  in  which  Cicero  declared  that  artistic  lying 
was  legitimate  in  history,  the  standard  of  modern 
German  accuracy.  The  fabrications  of  Jewish  apolo- 
gists were  in  the  spirit  of  the  time. 

The  outward  history  of  the  Alexandrian  com- 
munity is  far  less  interesting  and  of  far  less  impor- 
tance than  its  intellectual  progress.  When  Alexander 
planted  the  colony  of  Jews  in  his  greatest  foundation, 
he  probably  intended  to  facilitate  the  fusion  of  East- 
ern and  Western  thought  through  their  mediation. 
Such,  at  any  rate,  was  the  result  of  his  work.  His 
marvellous  exploits  had  put  an  end  for  a  time  to  the 
political  strife  between  Asia  and  Europe,  and  had 


24      PHILO-JUDyEUS  OF  ALEXAXDEIA 

started  the  movement  between  the  two  realms  of  cul- 
ture, which  was  fated  to  produce  the  greatest  combi- 
nation of  ideas  that  the  world  has  known.  Now,  at 
last,  the  Hebrew,  with  his  lofty  conception  of  God, 
came  into  close  contact  with  the  Greek,  who  had  de- 
veloped an  equally  noble  conception  of  man.  Dis- 
raeli, in  his  usual  sweeping  manner,  makes  one  of  his 
characters  in  "  Lothair "  tell  how  the  Aryan  and 
Semitic  races,  after  centuries  of  wandering  upon  op- 
posite courses,  met  again  and,  represented  by  their 
two  choicest  families,  the  Hellenes  and  the  Hebrews, 
brought  together  the  treasures  of  their  accumulated 
wisdom  and  secured  the  civilization  of  man.  Apart 
from  the  question  of  the  original  common  source,  of 
which  we  are  no  longer  sure,  his  rhetoric  is  broadly 
true;  but  for  two  centuries  the  influence  was  nearly 
all  upon  one  side.  The  Jew,  attracted  by  the  brilliant 
art,  literature,  science,  and  philosophy  of  the  Hellene, 
speedily  Hellenized,  and  as  early  as  the  third  century 
B.  c.  E.  Clearchus,  the  pupil  of  Aristotle,  tells  of  a 
Jew  whom  his  master  met,  who  was  "  Greek  not  only 
in  language  but  also  in  mind." l  The  Greek,  on  the 
other  hand,  who  had  not  yet  comprehended  the  majes- 
ty of  his  neighbor's  monotheism,  for  lack  of  ade- 
quate presentation,  did  not  Hebraize.  In  Palestine 
the  adoption  of  Greek  ways  and  the  introduction  of 
Greek  ideas  proceeded  rapidly  to  the  point  of  demoral- 
ization, until  the  Maccabees  stayed  it.  Unfortunately, 
the  Hellenism  that  was  brought  to  Palestine  was  not 

1  Quoted  in  C.  Apion.  I.  22. 


THE  COMMUNITY*  AT  ALEXANDRIA    25 

the  lofty  culture,  the  eager  search  for  truth  and 
knowledge,  that  marked  Athens  in  the  classical  age; 
it  was  a  bastard  product  of  Greek  elegance  and  Ori- 
ental luxury  and  sensuousness,  a  seeking  after  base 
pleasures,  an  assertion  of  naturalistic  polytheism. 
And  hence  came  the  strong  reaction  against  Greek 
ideas  among  the  bulk  of  the  people,  which  prevented 
any  permanent  fusion  of  cultures  in  the  land  of 
Israel. 

The  Hellenism  of  Alexandria  was  a  more  genuine 
product.  The  liberal  policy  of  the  early  Ptolemies 
made  their  capital  a  centre  of  art,  literature,  science, 
and  philosophy.  To  their  court  were  gathered  the 
chief  poets,  savants,  and  thinkers  of  their  age.  The 
Museum  was  the  most  celebrated  literary  academy, 
and  the  Library  the  most  noted  collection  of  books  in 
the  world.  Dwelling  in  this  atmosphere  of  culture 
and  research,  the  Hebrew  mind  rapidly  expanded  and 
began  to  take  its  part  as  an  active  force  in  civilization. 
It  acquired  the  love  of  knowledge  in  a  wider  sense 
than  it  had  recognized  before,  and  assimilated  the 
teachings  of  Hellas  in  all  their  variety.  Within  a 
hundred  years  of  their  settlement  Hebrew  or  Aramaic 
had  become  to  the  Jews  a  strange  language,  and  they 
spoke  and  thought  in  Greek.  Hence  it  was  necessary 
to  have  an  authoritative  Greek  translation  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  and  the  first  great  step  in  the  Jewish- 
Hellenistic  development  is  marked  by  the  Septuagint 
version  of  the  Bible. 

Fancy  and  legend  attached  themselves  early  to  an 


26      PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

event  fraught  with  such  importance  for  the  history  of 
the  race  and  mankind  as  the  translation  of  the  Scrip- 
tures into  the  language  of  the  cultured  world.  From 
this  overgrowth  it  is  difficult  to  construct  a  true  narra- 
tive ;  still,  the  research  of  latter-day  scholars  has  gone 
far  to  prove  a  basis  of  truth  in  the  statements  made 
in  the  famous  letter  of  the  pseudo-Aristeas,  which  pro- 
fesses to  describe  the  origin  of  the  work.  We  may 
extract  from  his  story  that  the  Septuagint  was  written 
in  the  reign  of  Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  about  250 
B.  c.  E.,  with  the  approval,  if  not  at  the  express  request, 
of  the  king,  and  with  the  help  of  rabbis  brought  from 
Palestine  to  give  authority  to  the  work.  But  we  need 
not  believe  with  later  legend  that  each  of  the  seventy 
translators  was  locked  up  in  a  separate  cell  for  seventy 
days  till  he  had  finished  the  whole  work,  and  that 
when  they  were  let  out  they  were  all  found  to  have 
written  exactly  the  same  words.  Philo  gives  us  a  ver- 
sion of  the  event,  romantic,  indeed,  but  more  rational, 
in  his  "  Life  of  Moses/' 1  He  tells  how  Ptolemy,  hav- 
ing conceived  a  great  admiration  for  the  laws  of  Moses, 
sent  ambassadors  to  the  high  priest  of  Judaa,  re- 
questing him  to  choose  out  a  number  of  learned  men 
that  might  translate  them  into  Greek.  "These  were 
duly  chosen,  and  came  to  the  king's  court,  and  were 
allotted  the  Isle  of  Pharos  as  the  most  tranquil  spot 
in  the  city  for  carrying  out  their  work ;  by  God's  grace 
they  all  found  the  exact  Greek  words  to  correspond 

1  De  V.  Mos.  II.  6,  7. 


THE  COMMUNITY  AT  ALEXANDRIA    27 

to  the  Hebrew  words,  so  that  they  were  not  mere 
translators,  but  prophets  to  whom  it  had  been  granted 
to  follow  in  the  divinity  of  their  minds  the  sublime 
spirit  of  Moses."  "  On  which  account,"  he  adds, 
"  even  to  this  day  there  is  in  every  year  celebrated  a 
festival  in  the  Island  of  Pharos,  to  which  not  only 
Jews  but  many  persons  of  other  nations  sail  across, 
reverencing  the  place  in  which  the  light  of  interpreta- 
tion first  shone  forth,  and  thanking  God  for  His 
ancient  gift  to  man,  which  has  eternal  youth  and  fresh- 
ness." It  is  significant  that  Philo  makes  no  mention 
in  his  books  of  the  festival  of  Hanukah,  while  the 
Talmud  has  no  mention  of  this  feast  of  Pharos;  the 
Alexandrian  Jews  celebrated  the  day  when  the  Bible 
was  brought  within  reach  of  the  Greek  world,  the 
Palestinians  the  day  when  the  Greeks  were  driven  out 
of  the  temple.  At  the  same  time  the  celebrations  in 
honor  of  the  Septuagint  and  of  the  deliverance  from 
the  Ptolemaic  persecution1  -are  remarkable  illustra- 
tions of  a  living  Jewish  tradition  at  Alexandria,  which 
attached  a  religious  consecration  to  the  special  history 
of  the  community. 

It  is  not  correct  to  say  with  Philo  that  the  translator 
rendered  each  word  of  the  Hebrew  with  literal  faith- 
fulness, so  as  to  give  its  proper  force.  Eather  may  we 
accept  the  words  of  the  Greek  translator  of  Ben  Sira : 
"Things  originally  spoken  in  Hebrew  have  not  the 
same  force  in  them  when  they  are  translated  into 
another  tongue,  and  not  only  these,  but  the  law  itself 

1  See  p.  22,  above. 


28      PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDEIA 

(the  Torah)  and  the  prophecies  and  the  rest  of  the 
books  have  no  small  difference  when  they  are  spoken 
in  their  original  language." J 

From  the  making  of  the  translation  one  can  trace 
the  movement  that  ended  in  Christianity.  By  read- 
ing their  Scriptures  in  Greek,  Jews  began  to  think 
them  in  Greek  and  according  to  Greek  conceptions. 
Certain  commentators  have  seen  in  the  Septuagint  it- 
self the  infusion  of  Greek  philosophical  ideas.  Be  this 
as  it  may,  it  is  certain  that  the  version  facilitated  the 
introduction  of  Greek  philosophy  into  the  interpreta- 
tion of  Scripture,  and  gave  a  new  meaning  to  certain 
Hebraic  conceptions,  by  suggesting  comparison  with 
strange  notions.  This  aspect  of  the  work  led  the 
rabbis  of  Palestine  and  Babylon  in  later  days,  when 
the  spread  of  Hellenized  Judaism  was  fraught  with 
misery  to  the  race,  to  regard  it  as  an  awful  calamity, 
and  to  recount  a  tale  of  a  plague  of  darkness  which 
fell  upon  Palestine  for  three  days  when  it  was  made ; " 
and  they  observed  a  fast  day  in  place  of  the  old  Alex- 
andrian feast  on  the  anniversary  of  its  completion. 
They  felt  as  the  old  Italian  proverb  has  it,  Tradut- 
iori,  traditori!  ("Translators  are  traitors!").  And 
the  Midrash  in  the  same  spirit  declares  *  that  the  oral 
law  was  not  written  down,  because  God  knew  that 
otherwise  it  would  be  translated  into  Greek,  and  He 
wished  it  to  be  the  special  mystery  of  His  people,  as 
the  Bible  no  longer  was. 

1  Preface  to  Ecclesiasticus. 
*  Tract.  Soferim  I.  7. 
*Tanhuma 


THE  COMMUNITY  AT  ALEXANDRIA    29 

The  Sep'tuagint  translation  of  the  Bible  was  one 
answer  to  the  lying  accounts  of  Israel's  early  history 
concocted  by  anti-Semitic  writers.  As  we  have  seen,1 
the  Alexandrian  Jews  began  early  to  write  histories 
and  re-edit  the  Bible  stories  to  the  same  purpose. 
And  for  some  time  their  writings  were  mainly  apolo- 
getic, designed,  whatever  their  form,  to  serve  a  de- 
fensive purpose.  But  later  they  took  the  offensive 
against  the  paganism  and  immorality  of  the  peoples 
about  them,  and  the  missionary  spirit  became  pre- 
dominant. Alexander  Polyhistor,  who  lived  in  the 
first  century,  included  in  his  "  History  of  the  Jews  " 
fragments  of  these  early  Jewish  historians  and  apolo- 
gists, which  the  Christian  bishop  Eusebius  has  handed 
down  to  us.  From  them  we  can  gather  some  notion 
of  the  strange  medley  of  fact  and  imagination  which 
was  composed  to  influence  the  Gentile  world.  Abra- 
ham is  said  to  have  instructed  the  Egyptians  in 
astrology;  Joseph  devised  a  great  system  of  agri- 
culture; Moses  was  identified  variously  with  the 
legendary  Greek  seer  Musasus  and  the  god  Hermes. 
A  favorite  device  for  rebutting  the  calumnies  of 
detractors  and  attracting  the  outer  world  to  Jewish 
ideas,  was  the  attachment  to  some  ancient  source 
of  panegyrics  upon  Judaism  and  monotheism.  To 
the  Greek  philosopher  Heraclitus  and  the  Greek  his- 
torian Hecataeus,  who  wrote  a  history  of  the  world, 
passages  which  glorify  the  Hebrew  people  and  the 
Hebrew  God  were  ascribed.  Still  more  daring  was 

1  See  p.  23,  above. 


30      PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDKIA 

the  conversion  into  archaic  hexameter  verse  of  the 
stories  of  Genesis  and  Exodus,  and  of  Messianic 
prophecies  in  the  guise  of  Sibylline  oracles.  The 
Sibyl,  whom  the  superstitious  of  the  time  revered  as 
an  inspired  seeress  of  prehistoric  ages,  was  made  to 
recite  the  building  of  the  tower  of  Babel,  or  the  vir- 
tues of  Abraham,  and  again  to  prophesy  the  day  when 
the  heathen  nations  should  be  wiped  out,  and  the  God 
of  Israel  be  the  God  of  all  the  world.  Although  the 
fabrication  of  oracles  is  not  entirely  defensible,  it  is 
unnecessary  to  see,  with  Schiirer,  in  these  writings  a 
low  moral  standard  among  the  Egyptian  Jews.  They 
were  not  meant  to  suggest,  to  the  cultured  at  any  rate, 
that  the  Sibyl  in  one  case  or  Heraclitus  in  another 
had  really  written  the  words  ascribed  to  them.  The 
so-called  forgery  was  a  literary  device  of  a  like  nature 
with  the  dialogues  of  Plato  or  the  political  fantasies 
of  More  and  Swift.  By  the  striking  nature  of  their 
utterances  the  writers  hoped  to  catch  the  ear  of  the 
Gentile  world  for  the  saving  doctrine  which  they 
taught.  The  form  is  Greek,  but  the  spirit  is  Hebraic ; 
in  the  third  Sibylline  oracle,  particularly,  the  call  to 
monotheism  and  the  denunciation  of  idolatry,  with 
the  pictures  of  the  Divine  reward  for  the  righteous, 
and  of  the  Divine  judgment  for  the  ungodly,  remind 
us  of  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah ;  as  when 
the  poet  says,1  "Witless  mortals,  who  cling  to  an 
image  that  ye  have  fashioned  to  be  your  god,  why  do 
ye  vainly  go  astray,  and  march  along  a  path  which  is 

10rac.  Sib.,  ed.  Alexandra,  III.  8. 


not  straight?  Why  remember  ye  not  the  eternal 
founder  of  All?  One  only  God  there  is  who  ruleth 
alone."  And  again:  "The  children  of  Israel  shall 
mark  out  the  path  of  life  to  all  mortals,  for  they  are 
the  interpreters  of  God,  exalted  by  Him,  and  bearing  a 
great  joy  to  all  mankind." 1  The  consciousness  of  the 
Jewish  mission  is  the  dominant  note.  Masters  now 
of  Greek  culture,  the  Jews  believed  that  they  had  a 
philosophy  of  their  own,  which  it  was  their  privilege 
to  teach  to  the  Greeks;  their  conception  of  God  and 
the  government  of  the  world  was  truer  than  any 
other;  their  conception  of  man's  duty  more  righteous; 
even  their  conception  of  the  state  more  ideal. 

The  apocryphal  book,  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon, 
which  was  probably  written  at  Alexandria  during  the 
first  century  B.  c.  E.,  is  marked  by  the  same  spirit. 
There  again  we  meet  with  the  glorification  of  the  one 
true  God  of  Israel,  and  the  denunciation  of  pagan 
idolatry;  and  while  the  author  writes  in  Greek  and 
shows  the  influence  of  Greek  ideas,  he  makes  the 
Psalms  and  the  Proverbs  his  models  of  literary  form. 
"Love  righteousness,"  he  begins,  "ye  that  be  judges 
of  the  earth ;  think  ye  of  the  Lord  with  a  good  nuajd 
and  in  singleness  of  heart  seek  ye  Him."  His  appeal 
for  godliness  is  addressed  to  the  Gentile  world  in  a 
language  which  they  understood,  but  in  a  spirit  to 
which  most  of  them  were  strangers.  The  early  his- 
tory of  the  Israelites  in  Egypt  comes  home  to  Mm 

lIUd.,  III.  195. 


32    PHILO-JUM:US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

with  especial  force,  for  he  sees  it  "in  the  light  of 
eternity,"  a  striking  moral  lesson  for  the  godless 
Egyptian  world  around  him  in  which  the  house  of 
Jacob  dwelt  again.  With  poetical  imagination  he 
tells  anew  the  story  of  the  ten  plagues  as  though  he 
had  lived  through  them,  and  seen  with  his  own  eyes 
the  punishment  of  the  idolatrous  land.  He  ends 
with  a  paean  to  the  God  who  had  saved  His  people. 
"  For  in  all  things  Thou  didst  magnify  them,  and 
Thou  didst  glorify  them,  and  not  lightly  regard  them, 
standing  by  their  side  in  every  time  and  place." 

At  this  epoch,  and  at  Alexandria  especially,  Juda- 
ism was  no  self-centred,  exclusive  faith  afraid  of  ex- 
pansion. The  mission  of  Israel  was  a  very  real  thing, 
and  conversion  was  widespread  in  Rome,  in  Egypt, 
and  all  along  the  Mediterranean  countries.  The  Jews, 
says  the  letter  of  Aristeas,  "eagerly  seek  intercourse 
with  other  nations,  and  they  pay  special  care  to  this, 
and  emulate  each  other  therein."  And  one  of  the 
most  reliable  pagan  writers  says  of  them,  "  They  have 
penetrated  into  every  state,  and  it  is  hard  to  find  a 
place  where  they  have  not  become  powerful." J  Nor 
was  it  merely  material  power  which  they  acquired. 
The  days  had  come  which  the  prophet  Amos  (viii.  11) 
had  predicted,  when  "  God  will  send  a  famine  in  the 
land,  not  a  famine  of  bread,  nor  a  thirst  for  water,  but 
a  famine  of  hearing  the  words  of  the  Lord."  The 
Greek  world"  had  lost  faith  in  the  poetical  gods  of  its 

1  Comp.  Strabo,  Frag.  6,  Didot 


THE  COMMUNITY  AT  ALEXANDKIA    33 

mythology  and  in  the  metaphysical  powers  of  its  phil- 
osophical schools,  and  was  searching  for  a  more  real 
object  to  revere  and  lean  on.  The  people  were  thirst- 
ing for  the  living  God.  And  in  place  of  the  gods  of 
nature,  whom  they  had  found  unsatisfying,  or  the 
impersonal  world-force,  with  which  they  sought  in 
vain  to  come  into  harmony,  the  Jews  offered  them  the 
God  of  history,  who  had  preserved  their  race  through 
the  ages,  and  revealed  to  them  the  law  of  Moses. 

The  missionary  purpose  was  largely  responsible  for 
the  rise  of  a  philosophical  school  of  Bible  commen- 
tators. The  Hellenistic  world  was  thoroughly  sophis- 
ticated, and  Alexandria  was  distinguished  above  all 
towns  as  the  home  of  philosophical  lectures  and  book- 
making.  One  of  Philo's  contemporaries  is  said  to 
have  written  over  one  thousand  treatises,  and  in  one 
of  his  rare  touches  of  satire  Philo  relates 1  how  bands 
of  sophists  talked  to  eager  crowds  of  men  and  women 
day  and  night  about  virtue  being  the  only  good,  and 
the  blessedness  of  life  according  to  nature,  all  with- 
out producing  the  slightest  effect,  save  noise.  The 
Jews  also  studied  philosophy,  and  began  to  talk  in  the 
catchwords  of  philosophy,  and  then  to  re-interpret 
their  Scriptures  according  to  the  ideas  of  philosophy. 
The  Septuagint  translation  of  the  Pentateuch  was  to 
the  cultured  Gentile  an  account  in  rather  bald  and 
impure  Greek  of  the  history  of  a  family  which  grew 
into  a  petty  nation,  and  of  their  tribal  and  national 

1  De  Post.  C.  24. 
3 


34      PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

laws.  The  prophets,  it  is  true,  set  forth  teachings 
which  were  more  obviously  of  general  moral  import; 
but  the  books  of  the  prophets  were  not  God's  special 
revelation  to  the  Jews,  but  rather  individual  utter- 
ances and  exhortations :  and  their  teaching  was  treated 
as  subordinate  to  the  Divine  revelation  in  the  Five 
Books  of  Moses.  Those,  then,  who  aimed  at  the 
spread  of  Jewish  monotheism  were  impelled  to  draw 
out  a  philosophical  meaning,  a  universal  value  from 
the  Books  of  Moses.  Nowadays  the  Bible  is  the  holy 
book  of  so  much  of  the  civilized  world  that  it  is 
somewhat  difficult  for  us  to  form  a  proper  conception 
of  what  it  was  to  the  civilized  world  before  the  Chris- 
tian era.  We  have  to  imagine  a  state  of  culture  in 
which  it  was  only  the  Book  of  books  to  one  small  na- 
tion, while  to  others  it  was  at  best  a  curious  record  of 
ancient  times,  just  as  the  Code  of  Hammurabi  or  the 
Egyptian  Book  of  Life  is  to  us.  The  Alexandrian 
Jews  were  the  first  to  popularize  its  teachings,  to 
bring  Jewish  religion  into  line  with  the  thought  of 
the  Greek  world.  It  was  to  this  end  that  they  founded 
a  particular  form  of  Midrash — the  allegorical  inter- 
pretation, which  is  largely  a  distinctive  product  of  the 
Alexandrian  age.  The  Palestinian  rabbis  of  the  time 
were  on  the  one  hand  developing  by  dialectic  discus- 
sion the  oral  tradition  into  a  vast  system  of  religious 
ritual  and  legal  jurisprudence ;  on  the  other,  weaving 
around  the  law,  by  way  of  adornment  to  it,  a  varie- 
gated fabric  of  philosophy,  fable,  allegory,  and  legend. 
Simultaneously  the  Alexandrian  preachers — they 


THE  COMMUNITY  AT  ALEXANDRIA    35 

were  never  quite  the  same  as  the  rabbis — were  em- 
phasizing for  the  outer  world  as  well  as  their  own 
people  the  spiritual  side  of  the  religion,  elaborating  a 
theology  that  should  satisfy  the  reason,  and  seeking 
to  establish  the  harmony  of  Greek  philosophy  with 
Jewish  monotheism  and  the  Mosaic  legislation.  Alle- 
gorical interpretation  is  "  based  upon  the  supposition 
or  fiction  that  the  author  who  is  interpreted  intended 
something  ' other '  (a/Uo)  than  what  is  expressed"; 
it  is  the  method  used  to  read  thought  into  a  text 
which  its  words  do  not  literally  bear,  by  attaching 
to  each  phrase  some  deeper,  usually  some  philosophi- 
cal meaning.  It  enables  the  interpreter  to  bring  writ- 
ings of  antiquity  into  touch  with  the  culture  of  hia»or 
any  age ;  "  the  gates  of  allegory  are  never  closed,  and 
they  open  upon  a  path  which  stretches  without 
a  break  through  the  centuries."  In  the  region 
of  jurisprudence  there  is  an  institution  with  a  similar 
purpose,  which  is  known  as  "  legal  fiction,"  whereby 
old  laws  by  subtle  interpretation  are  made  to  serve 
new  conditions  and  new  needs.  Allegorical  interpre- 
tation must  be  carefully  distinguished  from  the  writ- 
ing of  allegory,  of  which  Bunyan's  "Pilgrim's  Pro- 
gress "  is  the  best-known  type.  One  is  the  converse  of 
the  other ;  for  in  allegories  moral  ideas  are  represented 
as  persons  and  moral  lessons  enforced  by  what  pur- 
ports to  be  a  story  of  life.  In  allegorical  interpreta- 
tion persons  are  transformed  into  ideas  and  their  his- 
tory into  a  system  of  philosophy.  The  Greek  philoso- 
phers had  applied  this  method  to  Homer  since  the 


36      PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDEIA 

fourth  century  B.  c.  E.,  in  order  to  read  into  the  epic 
poet,  whose  work  they  regarded  almost  as  a  Divine 
revelation,  their  reflective  theories  of  the  universe. 
And  doubtless  the  Jewish  philosophers  were  influ- 
enced by  their  example. 

Their  allegorical  treatment  of  the  Bible  was  in- 
tended, not  merely  to  adapt  it  to  the  Greek  world,  but 
to  strengthen  its  hold  on  the  Alexandrian  Jews 
themselves.  These,  as  they  acquired  Hellenic  culture, 
found  that  the  Bible  in  its  literal  sense  did  not  alto- 
gether satisfy  their  conceptions.  They  detected  in 
it  a  certain  primitiveness,  and  having  eaten  further 
of  the  tree  of  knowledge,  they  were  aware  of  its  philo- 
sophical nakedness.  It  was  full  of  anthropomorphism, 
and  it  seemed  wanting  in  that  which  the  Greek  world 
admired  above  all  things — a  systematic  theology  and 
systematic  ethics.  The  idea  that  the  words  of  the 
Bible  contained  some  hidden  meanings  goes  back  to  the 
earliest  Jewish  tradition  and  is  one  of  the  bases  of  the 
oral  law ;  but  the  special  characteristic  of  the  Alexan- 
drian exegesis  is  that  it  searched  out  theories  of  God 
and  life  like  those  which  the  Greek  philosophers  had 
developed.  The  device  was  necessary  to  secure  the 
allegiance  of  the  people  to  the  Torah.  And  from  the 
need  of  expounding  the  Bible  in  this  way  to  the  Jew- 
ish public  at  Alexandria,  there  arose  a  new  form  of 
religious  literature,  the  sermon,  and  a  new  form  of 
commentary,  the  homiletical.  The  words  "homileti- 
cal "  and  "  homily  "  suggest  what  they  originally  con- 
noted; they  are  derived  from  the  Greek 


THE  COMMUNITY  AT  ALEXAKDEIA    37 

"an  assembly/'  and  a  homily  was  a  discourse  deliv- 
ered to  an  assembly.  The  Meturgeman  of  Palestine 
and  Babylon,  who  expounded  the  Hebrew  text  in  Ara- 
maic, became  the  preacher  of  Alexandria,  who  gave,  in 
Greek,  of  course,  homiletical  expositions  of  the  law. 
In  the  great  synagogue  each  Sabbath  some  leader  in 
the  community  would  give  a  harangue  to  the  assem- 
bly, starting  from  a  Biblical  text  and  deducing  from 
it  or  weaving  into  it  the  ideas  of  Hellenic  wisdom, 
touched  by  Jewish  influence;  for  the  synagogues  at 
Alexandria  as  elsewhere  were  the  schools  (Schule)  as 
much  as  the  houses  of  prayer ;  schools,  as  Philo  says, 
of  "temperance,  bravery,  prudence,  justice,  piety, 
holiness,  and  in  short  of  all  virtues  by  which  things 
human  and  Divine  are  well  ordered."1  He  speaks 
repeatedly  of  the  Sabbath  gatherings,  when  the  Jews 
would  become,  as  he  puts  it,  a  community  of  philoso- 
phers," as  they  listened  to  the  exegesis  of  the  preacher, 
who  by  allegorical  and  homiletical  fancies  would  make 
a  verse  or  chapter  of  the  Torah  live  again  with  a  new 
meaning  to  his  audience.  The  Alexandrian  Jews, 
though  the  form  of  their  writing  was  influenced  by 
the  Greeks,  probably  brought  with  them  from  Pales- 
tine primitive  traces  of  allegorism.  Allegory  and  its 
counterpart,  allegorical  interpretation,  are  deeply  im- 
bedded in  the  Oriental  mind,  and  we  hear  of  ancient 
schools  of  symbolists  in  the  oldest  portions  of  the 

1  De  V.  Mos.  II.  28. 
*  Comp.  De  Decal.  20. 


38      PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDEIA 

Talmud.1  At  what  period  the  Alexandrians  began 
to  use  allegorical  interpretation  for  the  purpose  of 
harmonizing  Greek  ideas  with  the  Bible  we  do  not 
know,  but  the  first  writer  in  this  style  of  whom  we 
have  record  (though  scholars  consider  that  his  frag- 
ments are  of  doubtful  authenticity)  is  Aristobulus. 
He  is  said  to  have  been  the  tutor  of  Ptolemy  Phil- 
ometor,  and  he  must  have  written  at  the  beginning 
of  the  first  century  B.  c.  E.  He  dedicated  to  the 
king  his  "  Exegesis  of  the  Mosaic  Law/'  which  was 
an  attempt  to  reveal  the  teachings  of  the  Peripatetic 
system,  i.  e.,  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle,  within  the 
text  of  the  Pentateuch.  All  anthropomorphic  expres- 
sions are  explained  away  allegorically,  and  God's  ac- 
tivity in  the  material  universe  is  ascribed  to  his 
Auvajuis,  or  power,  which  pervades  all  creation. 
Whether  the  power  is  independent  and  treated  as  a 
separate  person  is  not  clear  from  the  fragments  that 
Eusebius 2  has  preserved  for  us.  Aristobulus  was  only 
one  link  in  a  continuous  chain,  though  his  is  the  only 
name  among  Philo's  predecessors  that  has  come 
down  to  us.  Philo  speaks,  fifteen  times  in  all,  of  ex- 
planations of  allegorists  who  read  into  the  Bible  this 
or  that  system  of  thought s  regarding  the  words  of  the 
law  as  "manifest  symbols  of  things  invisible  and 
hints  of  things  inexpressible."  And  if  their  work  were 

1  Comp.  Yer.  Berakot  24c. 
*Pr<rp.  Evang.  VIII.  10,  XIII.  12. 

'Comp.  De  Air.  15  and  37,  De  Jos.  II.  63,  De  Spec.  Leg. 
III.  32,  De  Migr.  89. 


THE  COMMUNITY  AT  ALEXANDRIA    39 

before  us,  it  is  likely  that  Philo  would  appear  as  the 
central  figure  of  an  Alexandrian  Midrash  gathered 
from  many  sources,  instead  of  the  sole  authority  for 
a  vast  development  of  the  Torah.  We  must  not  re- 
gard him  as  a  single  philosophical  genius  who  sud- 
denly springs  up,  but  as  the  culmination  of  a  long 
development,  the  supreme  master  of  an  old  tradition. 
If  the  allegorical  method  appears  now  as  artificial 
and  frigid,  it  must  be  remembered  that  it  was  one 
which  recommended  itself  strongly  to  the  age.  The 
great  creative  era  of  the  Greek  mind  had  passed  away 
with  the  absorption  of  the  city-state  in  Alexander's 
empire.  Then  followed  the  age  of  criticism,  during 
which  the  works  of  the  great  masters  were  interpreted, 
annotated,  and  compared.  Next,  as  creative  thought 
became  rarer,  and  confidence  in  human  reason  began 
to  be  shaken,  men  fell  back  more  and  more  for  their 
ideas  and  opinions  upon  some  authority  of  the  distant 
past,  whom  they  regarded  as  an  inspired  teacher.  The 
sayings  of  Homer  and  Pythagoras  were  considered  as 
divinely  revealed  truths;  and  when  treated  allegori- 
cally,  they  were  shown  to  contain  the  philosophical 
tenets  of  the  Platonic,  the  Aristotelian,  or  the  Stoic 
school.  Thus,  in  the  first  century  B.  c.  E.,  the  Greek 
mind,  which  had  earlier  been  devoted  to  the  free 
search  for  knowledge  and  truth,  was  approaching  the 
Hebraic  standpoint,  which  considered  that  the  highest 
truth  had  once  for  all  been  revealed  to  mankind  in  in- 
spired writings,  and  that  the  duty  of  later  generations 
was  to  interpret  this  revealed  doctrine  rather  than 


46      PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

search  independently  for  knowledge.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  Jewish  interpreters  were  trying  to  reach  the 
Greek  standpoint  when  they  set  themselves  to  show 
that  the  writers  of  the  Bible  had  anticipated  the  phil- 
osophers of  Hellas  with  systems  of  theology,  psychol- 
ogy, ethics,  and  cosmology.  Allegorism,  it  may  be  said, 
is  the  instrument  by  which  Greek  and  Hebrew  thought 
were  brought  together.  Its  development  was  in  its 
essence  a  sign  of  intellectual  vigor  and  religious  ac- 
tivity; but  in  the  time  of  Philo  it  threatened  to  have 
one  evil  consequence,  which  did  in  the  end  undermine 
the  religion  of  the  Alexandrian  community.  Some 
who  allegorized  the  Torah  were  not  content  with  dis- 
covering a  deeper  meaning  beneath  the  law,  but  went 
on  to  disregard  the  literal  sense,  i.  e.,  they  allegorized 
away  the  law,  and  held  in  contempt  the  symbolic  ob- 
servance to  which  they  had  attached  a  spiritual 
meaning.  On  the  other  hand,  there  was  a  party  which 
adhered  strictly  to  the  literal  sense  (r&  /JTJTOV)  and  re- 
jected allegorism.1  Philo  protested  against  these  ex- 
tremes and  was  the  leader  of  those  who  were  liberal  in 
thought  and  conservative  in  practice,  and  who  vener- 
ated the  law  both  for  its  literal  and  for  its  allegorical 
sense.  To  effect  the  true  harmony  between  the  literal 
and  the  allegorical  sense  of  the  Torah,  between  the 
spiritual  and  the  legal  sides  of  Judaism,  between 
Greek  philosophy  and  revealed  religion — that  was  the 
great  work  of  Philo-Judseus. 

1  Quod  Deus  11,  De  Air.  36. 


Though  the  religious  and  intellectual  development 
of  the  Alexandrian  community  proceeded  on  different 
lines  from  that  of  the  main  body  of  the  nation  in 
Palestine,  yet  the  connection  between  the  two  was 
maintained  closely  for  centuries.  The  colony,  as  we 
have  noticed,  recognized  whole-heartedly  the  spiritual 
headship  of  Jerusalem,  and  at  the  great  festivals  of 
the  year  a  deputation  went  from  Alexandria  to  the 
holy  sanctuary,  bearing  offerings  from  the  whole 
community.  In  Jerusalem,  on  the  other  hand,  special 
synagogues,  where  Greek  was  the  language,1  were  built 
for  Alexandrian  visitors.  Alexandrian  artisans  and 
craftsmen  took  part  in  the  building  of  Herod's  temple, 
but  were  found  inferior  to  native  workmen.*  The 
notices  within  the  building  were  written  in  Greek  as 
well  as  in  Aramaic,  and  the  golden  gates  to  the  inner 
court  were,  we  are  told  by  Josephus,1  the  gift  of 
Philo's  brother,  the  head  of  the  Alexandrian  com- 
munity. Some  fragments  have  come  down  to  us  of  a 
poem  about  Jerusalem  in  Greek  verse  by  a  certain 
Philo,  who  lived  in  the  first  century  B.  c.  E.,  and  was 
perhaps  an  ancestor  of  our  worthy.  He  glorifies  the 
Holy  City,  extols  its  fertility,  and  speaks  of  its  ever- 
flowing  waters  beneath  the  earth.  His  greater  name- 
sake says  that  wherever  the  Jews  live  they  consider 
Jerusalem  as  their  metropolis.  The  Talmud  again 


Acts  of  the  Apostles  VI.  9,  and  Tosef.  Meg. 
III.  6. 
*Yoma  83». 
1  Bell.  Jud.  V.  5. 

V- 


42      PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

tells  how  Judah  Ben  Tabbai  and  Joshua  Ben  Perahva, 
during  the  persecution  of  the  Pharisees  by  Hyrcanus, 
fled  to  Alexandria,  and  how  later  Joshua  Ben  Hana- 
nia  *  sojourned  there  and  gave  answers  to  twelve  ques- 
tions which  the  Jews  propounded  to  him,  three  of 
them  dealing  with  "  the  Wisdom."  The  Talmud  has 
frequent  reference  to  Alexandrian  Jews,  and  that  it 
makes  little  direct  mention  of  the  Alexandrian  ex- 
egesis is  explained  by  the  distrust  of  the  whole  Hellen- 
istic movement,  which  the  rise  of  Christianity  and  the 
growth  of  Gnosticism  induced  in  the  rabbis  of  the 
second  and  third  centuries.  They  lived  at  a  time 
when  it  had  been  proved  that  that  movement  led  away 
from  Judaism,  and  its  main  tenets  had  been  adopted 
or  perverted  by  an  antagonistic  creed.  It  was  a  tragic 
necessity  which  compelled  the  severance  between  the 
Eastern  and  Western  developments  of  the  religion. 
In  Philo's  day  the  breach  was  already  threatened, 
through  the  anti-legal  tendencies  of  the  extreme  alle- 
gorists.  His  own  aim  was  to  maintain  the  catholic 
tradition  of  Judaism,  while  at  the  same  time  ex- 
pounding the  Torah  according  to  the  conceptions  of 
ancient  philosophy.  Unfortunately,  the  balance  was 
not  preserved  by  those  who  followed  him,  and  the 
branch  of  Judaism  that  had  blossomed  forth  so  fruit- 
fully fell  off  from  the  parent  tree.  But  till  the  mid- 
dle of  the  first  century  of  the  common  era  the  Alex- 
andrian and  the  Palestinian  developments  of  Jewish 

1  Comp.  Niddah  69",  Sotah  47«. 


THE  COMMUNITY  AT  ALEXANDRIA    43 

culture  were  complementary:  on  the  one  side  there 
was  legal,  on  the  other,  philosophical  expansion. 
Moreover,  the  Judseo-Alexandrian  school,  though, 
through  its  abandonment  of  the  Hebrew  tongue,  it 
lies  outside  the  main  stream  of  Judaism,  was  an  im- 
mense force  in  the  religious  history  of  the  world,  and 
Philo,  its  greatest  figure,  stands  out  in  our  annals  as 
the  embodiment  of  the  Jewish  religious  mission, 
which  is  to  preach  to  the  nations  the  knowledge  of 
the  one  God,  and  the  law  of  righteousness. 


II 

THE  LIFE  AKD  TIMES  OF  PHILO 

"The  hero/'  says  Carlyle,  "can  be  poet,  prophet, 
king,  priest,  or  what  you  will,  according  to  the  kind  of 
world  he  finds  himself  born  into." 3  The  Jews  have 
not  been  a  great  political  people,  but  their  excellence 
has  been  a  peculiar  spiritual  development:  and  there- 
fore most  of  their  heroes  have  been  men  of  thought 
rather  than  action,  writers  rather  than  statesmen,  men 
whose  influence  has  been  greater  on  posterity  than 
upon  their  own  generation.  Of  Philo's  life  we  know 
one  incident  in  very  full  detail,  the  rest  we  can  only 
reconstruct  from  stray  hints  in  his  writings,  and  a  few 
short  notices  of  the  commentators.  From  that  inci- 
dent also,  which  we  know  to  have  taken  place  in  the 
year  40  c.  E.,  we  can  fix  the  general  chronology  of  his 
life  and  works.  He  speaks  of  himself  as  an  old  man 
in  relating  it,  so  that  his  birth  may  be  safely  placed 
at  about  20  B.  c.  E.  The  first  part  of  his  life  there- 
fore was  passed  -during  the  tranquil  era  in  which 
Augustus  and  Tiberius  were  reorganizing  the  Eoman 
Empire  after  a  half-century  of  war ;  but  he  was  fated 
to  see  more  troublesome  times  for  his  people,  when  the 
emperor  Gaius,  for  a  miserable  eight  years,  harassed 
the  world  with  his  mad  escapades.  In  the  riots  which 
ensued  upon  the  attempt  to  deprive  the  Jews  of 
their  religious  freedom  his  brother  the  alabarch  was 

1 "  Heroes  and  Hero-Worship,"  ch.  3. 


THE  LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  PHILO      45 

imprisoned;1  and  he  himself  was  called  upon  to 
champion  the  Alexandrian  community  in  its  hour 
of  need.  Although  the  ascent  of  the  stupid  hut 
honest  Claudius  dispelled  immediate  danger  from  the 
Jews  and  brought  them  a  temporary  increase  of  favor 
in  Alexandria  as  well  as  in  Palestine,  Philo  did 
not  return  entirely  to  the  contemplative  life  which 
he  loved ;  and  throughout  the  latter  portion  of  his  life 
he  was  the  public  defender  as  well  as  the  teacher  of 
his  people.  He  probably  died  before  the  reign  of 
Nero,  between  50  and  60  c.  E.  In  Jewish  history  his 
life  covered  the  reigns  of  King  Herod,  his  sons, 
and  King  Agrippa,  when  the  Jewish  kingdom  reached 
its  height  of  outward  magnificence;  and  it  extended 
probably  up  to  the  ill-omened  conversion  of  Judaea 
into  a  Eoman  province  under  the  rule  of  a  procurator. 
It  is  noteworthy  also  that  Philo  was  partly  contempo- 
rary with  Hillel,  who  came  from  Babylon  to  Jerusa- 
lem in  30  B.  c.  E.,  and  according  to  the  accepted  tra- 
dition was  president  of  the  Sanhedrin  till  his  death  in 
10  c.  E.  In  this  epoch  Judaism,  by  contact  with  ex- 
ternal forces,  was  thoroughly  self-conscious,  and  the 
world  was  most  receptive  of  its  teaching;  hence  it 
spread  itself  far  and  wide,  and  at  the  same  time 
reached  its  greatest  spiritual  intensity.  Hillel  and 
Philo  show  the  splendid  expansion  of  the  Hebrew 
mind.  In  the  history  of  most  races  national  great- 
ness and  national  genius  appear  together.  The  two 
grandest  expressions  of  Jewish  genius  immediately 

1  Ant.  XIX.  5. 


46      PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

preceded  the  national  downfall.  For  the  genius  of 
Judaism  is  religious,  and  temporal  power  is  not  one 
of  the  conditions  of  its  development. 

Philo  belonged  to  the  most  distinguished  Jewish 
family  of  Alexandria,1  and  according  to  Jerome  and 
Photius,  the  ancient  authorities  for  his  life,  was  of 
the  priestly  rank;  his  brother  Alexander  Lysimachus 
was  not  only  the  governor  of  the  Jewish  community, 
but  also  the  alabarch,  i.  e.,  ruler  of  the  whole  Delta 
region,  and  enjoyed  the  confidence  of  Mark  Antony, 
who  appointed  him  guardian  of  his  second  daugh- 
ter Antonia,  the  mother  of  Germanicus  and  the 
Eoman  emperor  Claudius.  Born  in  an  atmosphere 
of  power  and  affluence,  Philo,  who  might  have  con- 
sorted with  princes,  devoted  himself  from  the  first 
with  all  his  soul  to  a  life  of  contemplation;  like  a 
Palestinian  rabbi  he  regarded  as  man's  highest  duty 
the  study  of  the  law  and  the  knowledge  of  God.2  This 
is  the  way  in  which  he  understood  the  philosopher's 
life 3 :  man's  true  function  is  to  know  God,  and  to 
make  God  known:  he  can  know  God  only  through 
His  revelation,  and  he  can  comprehend  that  revela- 
tion only  by  continued  study.  HDDn  3D1?  K'SJi,  God's 
interpreter  must  have  a  wise  heart,*  as  the  rabbis 
explained.  Philo  then  considered  that  the  true  un- 
derstanding of  the  law  required  a  complete  knowl- 
edge of  general  culture,  and  that  secular  philosophy 

1  Photius,  Cod,.  108. 

'Cornp.  De  Confus.  15. 

»Comp.  De  Mon.  I.  6. 

*Comp.  Maimonides,  Moreh  II,  ch.  36. 


was  a  necessary  preparation  for  the  deeper  mysteries 
of  the  Holy  Word.  "  He  who  is  practicing  to  abide 
in  the  city  of  perfect  virtue,  before  he  can  be  in- 
scribed as  a  citizen  thereof,  must  sojourn  with  the 
'  encyclic '  sciences,  so  that  through  them  he  may  ad- 
vance securely  to  perfect  goodness." 1  The  "  encyclic," 
or  encyclopaedic  sciences,  to  which  he  refers,  are  the 
various  branches  of  Greek  culture,  and  Philo  finds  a 
symbol  of  their  place  in  life  in  the  story  of  Abraham. 
Abraham  is  the  eternal  type  of  the  seeker  after  God, 
and  as  he  first  consorted  with  the  foreign  woman 
Hagar  and  had  offspring  by  her,  and  afterwards  in 
his  mature  age  had  offspring  by  Sarah,  so  in  Philo's 
interpretation  the  true  philosopher  must  first  apply 
himself  to  outside  culture  and  enlarge  his  mind  with 
that  training ;  and  when  his  ideas  have  thus  expanded, 
he  passes  on  to  the  more  sublime  philosophy  of  the 
Divine  law,  and  his  mind  is  fruitful  in  lofty  thoughts." 
As  a  prelude  to  the  study  of  Greek  philosophy  he 
built  up  a  harmony  of  the  mind  by  a  study  of  Greek 
poetry,  rhetoric,  music,  mathematics,  and  the  natural 
sciences.  His  works  bear  witness  to  the  thoroughness 
with  which  he  imbibed  all  that  was  best  in  Greek 
literature.  His  Jewish  predecessors  had  written  in 
the  impure  dialect  of  the  Hellenistic  colonies  (the 
xoivl)  (Jta/UxToc) ,  and  had  shown  little  literary  charm; 
but  Philo's  style  is  more  graceful  than  that  of  any 
Greek  prose  writer  since  the  golden  age  of  the  fourth 

1L.  A.  I.  135. 

2  Comp.  De  Cong.  6  fl. 


48      PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

century.  Like  his  thought,  indeed,  it  is  eclectic  and 
not  always  clear,  but  full  of  reminiscences  of  the  epic 
and  tragic  poets  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  Plato  on  the 
other,1  it  gives  a  happy  blending  of  prose  and  poetry, 
which  admirably  fits  the  devotional  philosophy  that 
forms  its  subject.  And  what  was  said  of  Plato  by  a 
Greek  critic  applies  equally  well  to  Philo  :  "  He  rises 
at  times  above  the  spirit  of  prose  in  such  a  way  that 
he  appears  to  be  instinct,  not  with  human  under- 
standing, but  with  a  Divine  oracle."  From  the  study 
of  literature  and  kindred  subjects  Philo  passed  on  to 
philosophy,  and  he  made  himself  master  of  the  teach- 
ings of  all  the  chief  schools.  There  was  a  mingling  of 
all  the  world's  wisdom  at  Alexandria  in  his  day;  and 
Philo,  like  the  other  philosophers  of  the  time,  shows 
acquaintance  with  the  ideas  of  Egyptian,  Chaldean, 
Persian,8  and  even  Indian  thought.  The  chief  Greek 
schools  in  his  age  were  the  Stoic,  the  Platonic,  the 
Skeptic  and  the  Pythagorean,  which  had  each  its  pro- 
fessors in  the  Museum  and  its  popular  preachers  in 
the  public  lecture-halls.  Later  we  will  notice  more 
closely  Philo's  relations  to  the  Greek  philosophers: 
suffice  it  here  to  say  that  he  was  the  most  distin- 
guished Platonist  of  his  age. 

Philo's  education  therefore  was  largely  Greek,  and 
his  method  of  thought,  and  the  forms  in  which  his 
ideas  were  associated  and  impressed,  were  Greek.  It 


.    Croiset,    Histoire    de    la    littcrature   ffrecque, 
V,  p^  425  ft. 

2  Comp.  Mills,  "  Zoroaster,  Philo,  and  Israel." 


THE  LIFE  A:ND  TIMES  OF  PHILO     49 

must  not  be  thought,  however,  that  this  involved  any 
weakening  of  his  Judaism,  or  detracted  from  the  pur- 
ity of  his  belief.  Far  from  it.  The  Torah  remained  for 
him  the  supreme  standard  to  which  all  outside  knowl- 
edge had  to  be  subordinated,  and  for  which  it  was  a 
preparation.1  But  Philo  brought  to  bear  upon  the  elu- 
cidation of  the  Torah  and  Jewish  law  and  ceremony 
not  only  the  religious  conceptions  of  the  Jewish  mind, 
but  also  the  intellectual  ideas  of  Greek  philosophy,  and 
he  interpreted  the  Bible  in  the  light  of  the  broadest 
culture  of  his  day.  Beautiful  as  are  the  thoughts  and 
fancies  of  the  Talmudic  rabbis,  their  Midrash  was  a 
purely  national  monument,  closed  by  its  form  as  by 
its  language  to  the  general  world;  Philo  applied  to 
the  exposition  of  Judaism  the  most  highly-trained 
philosophic  mind  of  Alexandria,  and  brought  out 
clearly  for  the  Hellenistic  people  the  latent  philosophy 
of  the  Torah. 

Greek  was  his  native  language,  but  at  the  same 
time  he  was  not,  as  has  been  suggested,  entirely  igno- 
rant of  Hebrew.  The  Septuagint  translation  was  the 
version  of  the  Bible  which  he  habitually  used,  but 
there  are  passages  in  his  works  which  show  that  he 
knew  and  occasionally  employed  the  Hebrew  Bible.2 
Moreover,  his  etymologies  are  evidence  of  his  knowl- 
edge of  the  Hebrew  language;  though  he  sometimes 
gives  a  symbolic  value  to  Biblical  names  according  to 


.  Quis  Rer.  Div.  43,  De  Judice  II,  De  V.  Mos. 
II.  4. 
a  Ritter,  Philon  und  die  Halacha. 


50      PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

their  Greek  equivalent,  he  more  frequently  bases  his 
allegory  upon  a  Hebrew  derivation.  That  all  names 
had  a  profound  meaning,  and  signified  the  true  nature 
of  that  which  they  designated,  is  among  the  most  firmly 
established  of  Philo' s  ideas.  Of  his  more  striking  deri- 
vations one  may  cite  Israel,  Stf'itr1,  the  man  who 
beholdeth  God ;  Jerusalem,  DiburiT,  the  sight  of  peace ; 
Hebrew,  nay,  one  who  has  passed  over  from  the  life 
of  the  passions  to  virtue;  Isaac, pn:r,  the  joy  or  laugh- 
ter of  the  soul.  These  etymologies  are  more  ingenious 
than  convincing,  and  are  not  entirely  true  to  Hebrew 
philology,  but  neither  were  those  of  the  early  rabbis; 
and  they  at  least  show  that  Philo  had  acquired  a 
superficial  knowledge  of  the  language  of  Scripture. 
Nor  can  it  be  doubted  that  he  was  acquainted  with 
the  Palestinian  Midrash,  both  Halakic  and  Hagga- 
dic.  At  the  beginning  of  the  "  Life  of  Moses  "  he  de- 
clares that  he  has  based  it  upon  "many  traditions 
which  I  have  received  from  the  elders  of  my  nation," ] 
and  in  several  places  he  speaks  of  the  "  ancestral 
philosophy,"  which  must  mean  the  Midrash  which  em- 
bodied tradition.  Eusebius  also,  the  early  Christian 
authority,  bears  witness  to  his  knowledge  of  the  tradi- 
tional interpretations  of  the  law.2 

It  is  fairly  certain,  moreover,  that  Philo  sojourned 
some  time  in  Jerusalem.  He  was  there  probably 
during  the  reign  of  Agrippa  (c.  30  c.  E.),  who  was  an 

1  Comp.  De  V.  Mos.  I.  1,  In  Flacc.  23  and  33,  De  Mut. 
Norn.  39. 
*Pr(zp.  Evang.  VIII.  r. 


THE  LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  PHILO       51 

intimate  friend  of  his  family,  and  had  found  a  refuge 
at  Alexandria  when  an  exile  from  Palestine  and  Borne. 
In  the  first  book  on  the  Mosaic  laws1  Philo  speaks 
with  enthusiasm  of  the  great  temple,  to  which  "  vast 
assemblies  of  men  from  a  countless  variety  of  cities, 
some  by  land,  some  by  sea,  from  East,  West,  North, 
and  South,  come  at  every  festival  as  if  to  some  com- 
mon refuge  and  harbor  from  the  troubles  of  this  har- 
assed and  anxious  life,  seeking  to  find  there  tran- 
quillity and  gain  a  new  hope  in  life  by  its  joyous  fes- 
tivities." These  gatherings,  at  which,  according  to 
Josephus,2  over  two  million  people  assembled,  must, 
indeed,  have  been  a  striking  symbol  of  the  unity  of  the 
Jewish  race,  which  was  at  once  national  and  inter- 
national; magnificent  embassies  from  Babylon  and 
Persia,  from  Egypt  and  Gyrene,  from  Eome  and 
Greece,  even  from  distant  Spain  and  Gaul,  went  in 
procession  together  through  the  gate  of  Xistus  up  the 
temple-mount,  which  was  crowned  by  the  golden  sanc- 
tuary, shining  in  the  full  Eastern  sun  like  a  sea  of 
light  above  the  town.  Philo  describes  in  detail  the 
form  of  the  edifice  that  moved  the  admiration  of  all 
who  beheld  it,  and  for  the  Jew,  moreover,  was  invested 
with  the  most  cherished  associations.  Its  outer  courts 
consisted  of  double  porticoes  of  marble  columns  burn- 
ished with  gold,  then  came  the  inner  courts  of  simple 
columns,  and  "within  these  stood  the  temple  itself, 
beautiful  beyond  all  possible  description,  as  one  may 

1De  Mon.  II.  1-3. 

aComp.  Bell  Jucl.  VI.  9.  3. 


52      PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDKIA 

tell  even  from  what  is  seen  in  the  outer  court ;  for  the 
innermost  sanctuary  is  invisible  to  every  being  except 
the  high  priest/'  The  majesty  of  the  ceremonial 
within  equalled  the  splendor  without.  The  high  priest, 
in  the  words  of  Ben  Sira  (xlv),  "beautified  with 
comely  ornament  and  girded  about  with  a  robe  of 
glory/'  seemed  a  high  priest  fit  for  the  whole  world. 
Upon  his  head  the  mitre  with  a  crown  of  gold  en- 
graved with  holiness,  upon  his  breast  the  mystic  Urim 
and  Thummim  and  the  ephod  with  its  twelve  brilliant 
jewels,  upon  his  tunic  golden  pomegranates  and  silver 
bells,  which  for  the  mystic  ear  pealed  the  harmony  of 
the  world  as  he  moved.  Little  wonder  that,  inspired 
by  the  striking  gathering  and  the  solemn  ritual,  Philo 
regarded  the  temple  as  the  shrine  of  the  universe,1  and 
thought  the  day  was  near  when  all  nations  should  go 
up  there  together,  to  do  worship  to  the  One  God. 

Sparse  as  are  the  direct  proofs  of  Philo's  connection 
with  Palestinian  Judaism,  his  account  of  the  temple 
and  its  service,  apart  from  the  general  standpoint  of 
his  writings,  proves  to  us  that  he  was  a  loyal  son  of 
his  nation,  and  loved  Judaism  for  its  national  in- 
stitutions as  well  as  its  great  moral  sublimity.  His 
aspiration  was  to  bring  home  the  truths  of  the  religion 
to  the  cultured  world,  and  therefore  he  devised  a  new 
expression  for  the  wisdom  of  his  people,  and  trans- 
formed it  into  a  literary  system.  Judaism  forms  the 
kernel,  but  Greek  philosophy  and  literature  the  shell, 

*Comp.  De  V.  Mos.  II.  4. 


THE  LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  PHILO      53 

of  his  work;  for  the  audience  to  which  he  appealed, 
whether  Jewish  or  Gentile,  thought  in  Greek,  and 
would  be  moved  only  by  ideas  presented  in  Greek 
form,  and  by  Greek  models  he  himself  was  inspired. 

Philo's  first  ideal  of  life  was  to  attain  to  the  pro- 
foundest  knowledge  of  God  so  as  to  be  fitted  for  the 
mission  of  interpreting  His  Word:  and  he  relates  in 
one  of  his  treatises  how  he  spent  his  youth  and  his 
first  manhood  in  philosophy  and  the  contemplation 
of  the  universe.1  "  I  feasted  with  the  truly  blessed 
mind,  which  is  the  object  of  all  desire  (i.  e.,  God), 
communing  continually  in  joy  with  the  Divine  words 
and  doctrines.  I  entertained  no  low  or  mean  thought, 
nor  did  I  ever  crawl  about  glory  or  wealth  or  worldly 
comfort,  but  I  seemed  to  be  carried  aloft  in  a  kind 
of  spiritual  inspiration  and  to  be  borne  along  in 
harmony  with  the  whole  universe."  The  intense  re- 
ligious spirit  which  seeks  to  perceive  all  things  in 
a  supreme  unity  Philo  shares  with  Spinoza,  whose 
life-ideal  was  the  intuitional  knowledge  of  the  uni- 
verse and  "  the  intellectual  love  of  God/'  Both  men 
show  the  pursuit  of  righteousness  raised  to  philo- 
sophical grandeur. 

In  his  early  days  the  way  to  virtue  and  happiness 
appeared  to  Philo  to  lie  in  the  solitary  and  ascetic 
life.  He  was  possessed  by  a  noble  pessimism,  that 
the  world  was  an  evil  place,2  and  the  worldly  life  an 

1  De  Spec.  Leg.  III.  1. 

2Comp.  De  Migr.  4,  L.  A.  III.  45. 


54    PHILO-JUD;EUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

evil  thing  for  a  man's  soul,  that  man  must  die  to  live, 
and  renounce  the  pleasures  not  only  of  the  body  but 
also  of  society  in  order  to  know  God.  The  idea  was  a 
common  one  of  the  age,  and  was  the  outcome  of  the 
mingling  of  Greek  ethics  and  psychology  and  the  Jew- 
ish love  of  righteousness.  For  the  Greek  thinkers 
taught  a  psychological  dualism,  by  which  the  body 
and  the  senses  were  treated  as  antagonistic  to  the 
higher  intellectual  soul,  which  was  immortal,  and 
linked  man  with  the  principle  of  creation.  The  most 
remarkable  and  enduring  effect  of  Hellenic  influence 
in  Palestine  was  the  rise  of  the  sect  of  Essenes,1  Jew- 
ish mystics,  who  eschewed  private  property  and  the 
general  social  life,  and  forming  themselves  into  com- 
munistic congregations  which  were  a  sort  of  social 
Utopia,  devoted  their  lives  to  the  cult  of  piety  and 
saintliness.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  their  manner 
of  life  was  to  some  degree  an  imitation  of  the  Pytha- 
gorean brotherhoods,  which  ever  since  the  sixth  cen- 
tury had  spread  a  sort  of  monasticism  through  the 
Greek  world.  Nor  is  it  unlikely  that  Hindu  teachings 
exercised  an  influence  over  them,  for  Buddhism  was  at 
this  age,  like  Judaism,  a  missionizing  religion,  and 
had  teachers  in  the  West.  Philo  speaks  in  several 
places  of  its  doctrines.2  Whatever  its  moulding  influ- 
ences, Essenism  represented  the  spirit  of  the  age, 
and  it  spread  far  and  wide.  At  Alexandria,  above  all 
places,  where  the  life  of  luxury  and  dissoluteness 

1  Comp.  Graetz,  "  History  of  the  Jews  "  III.  91  ff. 

2  Comp.  Quod  Omnis  Probus  Liber  11  ff. 


THE  LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  PHILO      55 

repelled  the  serious,  ascetic  ideas  took  firm  hold  of 
the  people,  and  the  Therapeutic  life,  i.  e.,  the  life  of 
prayer  and  labor  devoted  to  God,  which  corresponded 
to  the  system  of  the  Essenes,  had  numerous  vota- 
ries. The  first  century  witnessed  the  extremes  of  the 
religious  and  irreligious  sentiments.  The  world  was 
weary  and  jaded;  it  had  lost  confidence  in  human 
reason  and  faith  in  social  ideals,  and  while  the  ma- 
terialists abandoned  themselves  to  hideous  orgies  and 
sensual  debaucheries,  the  higher-minded  went  to  the 
opposite  excess  and  sought  by  flight  from  the  world 
and  mortification  of  the  flesh  to  attain  to  supernat- 
ural states  of  ecstasy.  A  book  has  come  down  to  us 
under  the  name  of  Philo 1  which  describes  "  the  con- 
templative life"  of  a  Jewish  brotherhood  that  lived 
apart  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Mareotis  by  the  mouth  of 
the  Nile.  Men  and  women  lived  in  the  settlement, 
though  all  intercourse  between  the  sexes  was  rigidly 
avoided.  During  six  days  of  the  week  they  met  in 
prayer,  morning  and  evening,  and  in  the  interval  de- 
voted themselves  in  solitude  to  the  practice  of  virtue 
and  the  study  of  the  holy  allegories,  and  the  composi- 
tion of  hymns  and  psalms.  On  the  Sabbath  they  sat 
in  common  assembly,  but  with  the  women  separated 
from  the  men,  and  listened  to  the  allegorical  homily 
of  an  elder;  they  paid  special  honor  to  the  Feast  of 
Pentecost,  reverencing  the  mystical  attributes  of  the 
number  fifty,  and  they  celebrated  a  religious  banquet 

lThe  authenticity  of  this  book  is  elaborately  discussed 
by  Conybeare  in  his  edition  of  it. 


56      PHILO-JUD^US  OP  ALEXANDRIA 

thereon.  During  the  rest  of  the  year  they  only  par- 
took of  the  sustenance  necessary  for  life,  and  thus  in 
their  daily  conduct  realized  the  way  which  the  rabbis 
set  out  as  becoming  for  the  study  of  the  Torah :  "  A 
morsel  of  bread  with  salt  thou  must  eat,  and  water  by 
measure  thou  must  drink;  thou  must  sleep  upon  the 
ground  and  live  a  life  of  hardship,  the  while  thou 
toilest  in  the  Torah."  * 

We  do  not  know  whether  Philo  attached  himself  to 
one  of  these  brotherhoods  of  organized  solitude,  or 
whether  he  lived  even  more  strictly  the  solitary  life 
out  in  the  wilderness  by  himself.  Certainly  he  was  at 
one  period  in  sympathy  with  ascetic  ideas.  It  seemed 
to  him  that  as  God  was  alone,  so  man  must  be  alone 
in  order  to  be  like  God.8  In  his  earlier  writings  he 
is  constantly  praising  the  ascetic  life,  as  a  means,  in- 
deed, to  virtue  rather  than  as  a  good  in  itself,  and  as 
a  helpful  discipline  to  the  man  of  incomplete  moral 
strength,  though  inferior  to  the  spontaneous  goodness 
which  God  vouchsafes  to  the  righteous.  Isaac  is  the 
type  of  this  highest  bliss,  while  the  life  of  Jacob  is  the 
type  of  the  progress  to  virtue  through  asceticism.8 
The  flight  from  Laban  represents  the  abandonment  of 
family  and  social  life  for  the  practical  service  of  God, 
and  as  Jacob,  the  ascetic,  became  Israel,  "  the  man 
who  beholdeth  God,"  so  Philo  determined  "to  scorn 
delights  and  live  laborious  days  "  in  order  to  be  drawn 

1 "  Ethics  of  the  Fathers  "  VI.  4. 
*De  Mundi  Op.  I.  42. 
*  Comp.  De  Migr.  6  ff. 


THE  LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  PHILO      57 

nearer  to  the  true  Being.  But  he  seems  to  have  been 
disappointed  in  his  hopes,  and  to  have  discovered  that 
the  attempt  to  cut  out  the  natural  desires  of  man  was 
not  the  true  road  to  righteousness.  "  I  often,"  he 
says,1  "left  my  kindred  and  friends  and  fatherland, 
and  went  into  a  solitary  place,  in  order  that  I  might 
have  knowledge  of  things  worthy  of  contemplation, 
hut  I  profited  nothing :  for  my  mind  was  sore  tempted 
by  desire  and  turned  to  opposite  things.  But  now, 
sometimes  even  when  I  am  in  a  multitude  of  men, 
my  mind  is  tranquil,  and  God  scatters  aside  all  un- 
worthy desires,  teaching  me  that  it  is  not  differences 
of  place  which  affect  the  welfare  of  the  soul,  but  God 
alone,  who  knows  and  directs  its  activity  howsoever 
he  pleases." 

The  noble  pessimism  of  Philo's  early  days  was  re- 
placed by  a  noble  optimism  in  his  maturity,  in  which 
he  trusted  implicitly  in  God's  grace,  and  believed  that 
God  vouchsafed  to  the  good  man  the  knowledge  of 
Himself  without  its  being  necessary  for  him  to  inflict 
chastisements  upon  his  body  or  uproot  his  inclina- 
tions. In  this  mood  moderation  is  represented  as  the 
way  of  salvation;  the  abandonment  of  family  and 
social  life  is  selfish,  and  betrays  a  lack  of  the  human- 
ity which  the  truly  good  man  must  possess.*  Of 
Philo's  own  domestic  life  we  catch  only  a  fleeting 
glimpse  in  his  writings.  He  realized  the  place  of 
woman  in  the  home ;  "  her  absence  is  its  destruction," 

1L.  A.  II.  21. 
*De  Fuga  1  ff . 


58      PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

he  said;  and  of  his  wife  it  is  told  in  another  of  the 
"  Fragments  "  that  when  asked  one  day  in  an  assem- 
bly of  women  why  she  alone  did  not  wear  any  golden 
ornament,  she  replied,  "  The  virtue  of  a  husband  is  a 
sufficient  ornament  for  his  wife." 

Though  in  his  maturity  Philo  renounced  the  ascetic 
life,  his  ideal  throughout  was  a  mystical  union  with 
the  Divine  Being.  To  a  certain  school  of  Judaism, 
which  loves  to  make  everything  rational  and  moderate, 
mysticism  is  alien;  it  was  alien  indeed  to  the  Sad- 
ducee  realist  and  the  Karaite  literalist;  it  was  alien 
to  the  systematic  Aristotelianism  of  Maimonides,  and 
it  is  alien  alike  to  Western  orthodox  and  Reform 
Judaism.  But  though  often  obscured  and  crushed 
by  formal  systems,  mysticism  is  deeply  seated  in  the 
religious  feelings,  and  the  race  which  has  developed 
the  Cabbalah  and  Hasidism  cannot  be  accused  of 
lack  of  it.  Every  great  religion  fosters  man's  aspira- 
tion to  have  direct  communion  with  God  in  some 
super-rational  way.  Particularly  should  this  be  the 
case  with  a  religion  which  recognizes  no  intermediary. 
The  Talmudic  conceptions  of  nxnj,  prophecy,  nyzw, 
the  Divine  Presence,  and  tsnpn  nn,  the  holy  spirit, 
which  was  vouchsafed  to  the  saint,  certainly  are 
mystic,  and  at  Alexandria  similar  ideas  inspired  a 
striking  development.  Once  again  we  can  trace  the 
fertilizing  influence  of  Greek  ideas.  Even  when  the 
old  naturalistic  cults  had  flourished  in  Greece,  and 
political  life  had  provided  a  worthy  goal  for  man, 
mystical  beliefs  and  ceremonies  had  a  powerful  attrac- 


THE  LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  PHILO       59 

tion  for  the  Hellene  ;  and,  when  the  belief  in  the  old 
gods  had  been  shattered,  and  with  the  national  great- 
ness the  liberal  life  of  the  State  had  passed  away,  he 
turned  more  and  more  to  those  rites  which  professed 
to  provide  healing  and  rest  for  the  sickening  soul. 
Many  of  the  Alexandrian  Jews  must  have  been  ini- 
tiated into  these  Greek  mysteries,  for  Philo  introduces 
into  his  exegesis  of  the  law  of  Moses  an  ordinance 
forbidding  the  practice.1  He  himself  advocates  a  more 
spiritual  mysticism,  and  it  is  a  cardinal  principle 
of  his  philosophy  to  treat  the  human  soul  as  a  god 
within  and  its  absorption  in  the  universal  Godhead 
as  supreme  bliss,  the  end  of  all  endeavor.  He  claimed 
to  have  attained,  himself,  to  this  union,  and  to  have 
received  direct  inspiration.  Giving  a  Greek  color- 
ing to  the  Hebrew  notion  of  prophecy,  "  My  soul," 
he  says,  "  is  wont  to  be  affected  with  a  Divine  trance 
and  to  prophesy  about  things  of  which  it  has  no 
knowledge  "  a  .  .  .  .  "  Many  a  time  have  I  come  with 
the  intention  of  writing,  and  knowing  exactly  what  I 
ought  to  set  down,  but  I  have  found  my  mind  barren 
and  fruitless,  and  I  have  gone  away  with  nothing 
done,  but  at  times  I  have  come  empty,  and  suddenly 
been  full,  for  ideas  were  invisibly  rained  down  upon 
me  from  above,  so  that  I  was  seized  by  a  Divine 
frenzy,  and  was  lost  to  everything,  place,  people,  self, 
speech,  and  thought.  I  had  gotten  a  stream  of  inter- 


.  De  Spec.  Leg.  II.  260. 
Comp.  De  Cherubim  9. 


60      PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDEIA 

pretation,  a  gift  of  light,  a  clear  survey  of  things,  the 
clearest  that  eye  can  give." J 

In  his  "  Guide  of  the  Perplexed,"  *  Maimonides  de- 
scribes the  various  degrees  of  the  tsnpn  nn,  or  what  we 
call  religious  "genius,"  with  which  man  may  be 
blessed.  He  distinguishes  between  the  man  who  pos- 
sesses it  only  for  his  own  exaltation,  and  the  man  who 
feels  himself  compelled  to  impart  it  to  others  for  their 
happiness.  To  this  higher  order  of  genius  Philo  ad- 
vanced in  his  maturity.  He  consciously  regarded  him- 
self as  a  follower  of  Moses,  who  was  the  perfect  inter- 
preter of  God's  thought.  So  he,  though  in  a  lesser 
degree,  was  an  inspired  interpreter,  a  hierophant  (as 
he  expressed  it  in  the  language  of  the  Greek  mystics) 
who  expounded  the  Divine  Word  to  his  own  genera- 
tion by  the  gift  of  the  Divine  wisdom.  When  he  had 
fled  from  Alexandria,  to  secure  virtue  by  contempla- 
tion, he  had  as  his  final  goal  the  attainment  of  the  true 
knowledge  of  God,  and  as  he  advanced  in  age,  he  ad- 
vanced in  decision  and  authority.  He  was  conscious 
of  his  philosophic  grasp  of  the  Torah,  and  the  diffi- 
dence with  which  he  allegorized  in  his  early  works 
gave  place  to  a  serene  confidence  that  he  had  a 
lesson  for  his  own  and  for  future  generations.  Hop- 
ing for  the  time  when  Judaism  should  be  a  world- 
religion,  he  spoke  his  message  for  Jew  and  Gentile. 
We  can  imagine  him  preaching  on  Sabbaths  to  the 

lDe  Migr.  7-9. 
•  II.  ch.  36  ff. 


THE  LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  PHILO      61 

great  congregation  which  filled  the  synagogue  at 
Alexandria,  and  on  other  days  of  the  week  expound- 
ing his  philosophical  ideas  to  a  smaller  circle  which 
he  collected  around  him. 

Essentially,  then,  he  was  a  philosopher  and  a 
teacher,  but  he  was  called  upon  to  play  a  part  in  the 
world  of  action.  Following  the  passage  already 
quoted,  wherein  Philo  speaks  of  the  blessings  of  the 
life  of  contemplation  that  he  had  led  in  the  past,1  he 
goes  on  to  relate  how  that  "  envy,  the  most  grievous  of 
all  evils,  attacked  me,  and  threw  me  into  the  vast  sea 
of  public  affairs,  in  which  I  am  still  tossed  about  with- 
out being  able  to  make  my  way  out."  A  French 
scholar2  conjectures  that  this  is  only  a  metaphorical 
way  of  saying  that  he  was  forced  into  some  public  of- 
fice, probably  a  seat  in  the  Alexandrian  Sanhedrin; 
and  he  ascribes  the  language  to  the  bitter  disappoint- 
ment of  one  who  was  devoted  to  philosophical  pursuits 
and  found  himself  diverted  from  them.  Philo's  lan- 
guage points  rather  to  duties  which  he  was  compelled 
to  undertake  less  congenial  than  those  of  a  member  of 
the  Sanhedrin  would  have  been;  and  probably  must 
refer  to  the  polemical  activity  which  he  was  called 
upon  to  exert  in  defending  his  people  against  misrep- 
resentation and  persecution.  During  the  reign  of 
Augustus  and  the  early  years  of  Tiberius  (30  B.  c.  E.- 
20  c.  E.)  the  Eoman  provinces  were  firmly  ruled,  and 

1  Comp.  De  Spec.  Leg.  III.  1. 

8  Massebieau,  Du  classement  des  ceuvres  de  Philon. 


62      PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

the  governors  were  as  firmly  controlled  by  the  emperor. 
To  Rectus,  who  was  the  prefect  of  Egypt  till  14  c.  E., 
and  who  was  removed  for  attempted  extortion,  Tibe- 
rius addressed  the  rebuke,  "I  want  my  sheep  to  be 
shorn,  not  strangled."  But  when  Tiberius  fell  under 
the  influence  of  Sejanus,  and  left  to  his  hated  minister 
the  active  control  of  the  empire,  harder  times  began 
for  the  provincials,  and  especially  for  the  Jews.  Se- 
janus was  an  upstart,  and  like  most  upstarts  a  tyrant; 
and  for  some  reason — it  may  be  jealousy  of  the  power 
of  the  Jews  at  Rome — he  hated  the  Jewish  race  and 
persecuted  it.  The  great  opponent  of  Sejanus  was 
Antonia,  the  ward  of  Philo's  brother,  and  a  loyal 
friend  to  his  people;  and  this,  too,  may  have  incited 
Sejanus'  ill-feeling.  Whatever  the  reason,  the  Alex- 
andrian Jews  felt  the  heavy  hand,  and  when  Philo 
came  to  write  the  story  of  his  people  in  his  own  times, 
he  devoted  one  book  to  the  persecution  by  Sejanus. 
Unfortunately  it  has  not  survived,  but  veiled  hints 
of  the  period  of  stress  through  which  the  people 
passed  are  not  wanting  in  the  commentary  on  the  law. 
There  were  always  anti-Semites  spoiling  for  a  fight 
at  Alexandria,  and  there  was  always  inflammable  ma- 
terial which  they  could  stir  up.  The  Egyptian  popu- 
lace were  by  nature,  says  Philo,  "  jealous  and  envious, 
and  were  filled  moreover  with  an  ancient  and  invet- 
erate enmity  towards  the  Jews,"  *  and  of  the  degener- 
ate Greek  population,  many  were  anxious  from  motives 

1  In  Place.  5. 


THE  LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  PHILO       63 

of  private  gain  as  well  as  from  religious  enmity  to 
incite  an  outbreak;  since  the  Jews  were  wealthy  and 
the  booty  would  be  great.  Among  the  cultured,  too, 
there  was  one  philosophical  school  powerful  at  Alex- 
andria, which  maintained  a  persistent  attitude  of  hos- 
tility towards  the  Jews.  The  chief  literary  anti-Sem- 
ites of  whom  we  have  record  at  this  period  were  Stoics, 
and  it  is  probably  their  "  envy  "  to  which  Philo  refers 
when  he  complains  of  being  drawn  into  the  sea  of 
politics.  In  writings  and  in  speeches  the  Stoic  leaders 
Apion  and  Chffiremon  carried  on  a  campaign  of  mis- 
representation, and  sought  to  give  their  attacks  a 
fine  humanitarian  justification  by  drawing  fancy  pic- 
tures of  the  Jewish  religion  and  Jewish  laws.  The 
Jews  worshipped  the  head  of  an  ass/  they  hated  the 
Gentiles,  and  would  have  no  communication  with 
them,  they  killed  Gentile  children  at  the  Passover,  and 
their  law  allowed  them  to  commit  any  offences  against 
all  but  their  own  people,  and  inculcated  a  low  morality. 
When  it  was  not  morally  bad,  it  was  degraded  and 
superstitious.  Whereas  the  modern  anti-Semite  usu- 
ally complains  about  Jewish  success  and  dangerous 
cleverness,  Apion  accused  them  of  having  produced  no 
original  ideas  and  no  great  men,  and  no  citizen  as 
worthy  of  Alexandria  as  himself!  Against  these 
charges  PhLo,  the  most  philosophical  Jew  of  the  time 
and  the  most  distinguished  member  of  the  Alexan- 

1  Comp.  Th.  Reinach,  Textes  d'auteurs  remains  et  grecs 
relatifs  au  Judaisms,  pp.  120  ff. 


64      PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDKIA 

drian  community,  was  called  upon  to  defend  his 
people,  and  that  part  of  his  works  which  Eusebius 
calls  'Yxoffertxa,  i.  e.  apologetics,  was  probably  written 
in  reply  to  the  Stoic  attacks.  The  hatred  of  the 
Stoics  was  a  religious  hatred,  which  is  the  bitterest  of 
all;  the  Stoics  were  the  propagators  of  a  rival  reli- 
gious system,  which  had  originally  been  founded  by 
Hellenized  Semites  and  borrowed  much  from  Semitic 
sources.  They  had  their  missionaries  everywhere  and 
aspired  to  found  a  universal  philosophical  religion.  In 
their  proselytizing  activity  they  tried  to  assimilate  to 
their  pantheism  the  mythological  religion  of  the 
masses,  and  thus  they  became  the  philosophical  sup- 
porters of  idolatry.  Their  greatest  religious  opponents 
were  the  Jews,  who  not  only  refused  to  accept  their 
teachings,  but  preached  to  the  nations  a  transcendental 
monotheism  against  their  impersonal  and  accommo- 
dating pantheism,  and  a  divinely-revealed  law  of  con- 
duct against  their  vague  natural  reason.  In  the  Stoic 
pantheism  the  first  stand  of  the  pagan  national  deities 
was  made  against  the  God  of  Israel,  and  at  Alexandria 
during  the  first  century  the  fight  waxed  fierce.  It 
was  a  fight  of  ideas  in  which  persons  only  were  vic- 
tims, but  at  the  back  of  the  intermittent  persecutions 
of  which  we  have  record  we  may  always  surmise  the 
influence  of  the  Stoic  anti-Semites.  The  war  of 
words  translated  itself  from  time  to  time  into  the 
breaking  of  heads. 

Philo,  indeed,  never  mentions  Apion  by  name,  but 
he  refers  covertly  in  many  places  to  his  insolence  and 


—•  THE  LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  PHILO       65 

unscrupulcmsness.1  Josephus  wrote  a  famous  reply  to 
his  attacks,  refuting  "his  vulgar  abuse,  gross  igno- 
rance and  demagogic  claptrap/' "  and  the  fact  that  a 
Palestinian  Jew  thought  this  apology  necessary,  proves 
the  wide  dissemination  of  the  poison.  The  disgrace 
and  death  of  Sejanus  seem  to  have  brought  a  relief 
from  actual  persecution  to  the  Alexandrian  Jews;  but 
the  ill-will  between  the  two  races  in  the  city  smoul- 
dered on,  and  it  only  required  a  weakening  of  the 
controlling  hand  at  Rome  to  set  the  passions  aflame 
again.  Eight  through  Philo's  treatise  "  On  the  Confu- 
sion of  Tongues,"  we  can  trace  the  tension.  As  soon 
as  Gaius,  surnamed  Caligula,  came  to  the  imperial 
chair,  the  opportunity  of  the  anti-Semites  returned. 
Gaius,  after  reigning  well  a  few  months,  fell  ill,  was 
seized  with  madness,  and  proved  how  much  evil  can 
be  done  in  a  short  space  by  an  imbecile  autocrat. 
Flaccus,  the  governor  of  Egypt,  who  had  hitherto 
ruled  fairly,  hoping  to  ingratiate  himself  by  misrule, 
allowed  himself  to  be  led  by  worthless  minions,  who, 
from  motives  of  private  greed,  desired  a  riot  at  Alex- 
andria ;  he  was  won  over  by  the  anti-Semites  and  gave 
the  mob  a  free  hand  in  their  attacks  upon  the  "  alien 
Jews." l  The  arrival  of  Agrippa,  the  grandson  of 
Herod,  who  was  on  his  way  to  his  kingdom  of  Pales- 
tine, which  the  capricious  emperor  had  just  conferred 
upon  him,  excited  the  ill-will  of  the  Alexandrian 

1  Comp.  De  Confus.,  passim. 

2  Josephus,  C.  Aplon.,  Introduction. 
8  In  Flacc.  10. 


66      PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

mob.  Flaccus  looked  on  while  the  people  attacked 
the  Jewish  quarters,  sacked  the  houses,  and  assailed 
everyone  that  came  within  their  reach.  The  most  dis- 
tinguished Jews  were  not  spared,  and  thirty  members 
of  the  Council  of  Elders  were  dragged  to  the  market- 
place and  scourged.  Philo's  account  gives  a  picture 
strikingly  similar  to  that  of  a  modern  pogrom.  The 
brutal  indifference  of  Flaccus  did  not  indeed  avail  to 
ingratiate  him  with  the  emperor,  and  he  was  recalled 
to  Italy,  exiled,  and  afterwards  executed. 

The  recall  of  Flaccus  did  not,  however,  put  an 
end  to  the  troubles;  the  mob  had  got  out  of  hand, 
the  anti-Semitic  demagogues  were  elated,  and  a  fresh 
opportunity  for  outrage  soon  presented  itself.  The 
mad  emperor,  having  exhausted  ordinary  human  fol- 
lies, went  on  to  imagine  himself  first  a  god  and  then 
the  Supreme  God,  and  finally  ordered  his  image  to  be 
set  up  in  every  temple  throughout  his  dominion.  The 
Jews  could  not  obey  the  order,  and  the  mob  rushed 
into  fresh  excesses  upon  them,  defiled  the  synagogues 
with  images  of  the  lunatic,  and  in  the  great  synagogue 
itself  set  up  a  bronze  statue  of  him,  inscribed  with  the 
name  of  Jupiter.  With  bitterness  Philo  points  out 
that  it  was  easy  enough  for  the  vile  Egyptians,  who 
worshipped  reptiles  and  beasts,  to  erect  a  statue  of 
the  emperor  in  their  temples ;  for  the  Jews,  with  their 
lofty  idea  of  God,  it  was  impossible.  Against  the 
attack  upon  their  liberty  of  conscience  they  appealed 
directly  to  Gaius.  An  embassy  was  sent  to  lay  their 
case  before  him,  and  Philo  went  to  Italy  at  the 


THE  LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  PHILO      67 

head  of  the  embassy.  "  He  who  is  learned,  gentle, 
and  modest,  and  who  is  beloved  of  men,  he  shall 
be  leader  in  the  city."  So  said  one  of  the  rabbis 
of  old,  and  the  maxim  is  especially  appropriate  to 
Philo,  who  in  name  and  deed  was  "  beloved  of  men." 
Philo  has  left  us  a  very  full  account  of  his  mission,  so 
that  this  incident  of  his  life  is  a  patch  of  bright  light, 
which  stands  out  almost  glaringly  from  the  general 
shadow.  The  account  is  not  merely,  nor,  indeed,  en- 
tirely history.  Looking  always  for  a  sermon  or  a  sub- 
ject for  a  philosophical  lesson,  Philo  has  tricked  out 
the  record  of  the  facts  with  much  moralizing  observa- 
tion on  the  general  lot  of  mankind,  and  elaborated  the 
part  of  Providence  more  in  the  spirit  of  religious  ro- 
mance than  of  scientific  history.  Yet  the  main  facts 
are  clear.  Philo  prepared  a  long  philosophical 
"  apologia  "  for  the  Jews  and  set  out  with  five  col- 
leagues for  Italy.  Nor  were  the  enemies  of  the  Jews 
remiss;  and  Apion,  the  Alexandrian  anti-Semite,  was 
sent  at  the  head  of  a  hostile  deputation.  The  emperor, 
Gaius,  was  in  one  of  his  most  flippant  moods  and  little 
inclined  to  listen  to  philosophical  or  literary  disqui- 
sitions. At  first  he  received  the  Jewish  deputation 
in  a  friendly  way,  and  led  them  to  think  that  he 
was  favorable ;  but  when  they  came  to  plead  their 
cause,  they  had  a  rude  awakening.  Philo,  who  was 
not  likely  to  appreciate  the  bitter  humor  of  the 
situation,  tells1  with  gravity  that  he  expected  that 

1  De  Leg.  27  and  28. 


68      PHILO-JUDyEUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

the  emperor  would  hear  the  two  contending  parties 
in  all  proper  judicial  form,  but  that  in  fact  he  be- 
haved like  an  insolent,  overbearing  tyrant.  The 
audience — if  it  can  be  so  called — took  place  in  the 
gardens  of  the  palace,  and  the  emperor  dragged 
the  unfortunate  deputation  after  him  about  the  place, 
while  he  gave  orders  to  his  gardeners,  builders,  and 
workmen.  Whenever  they  tried  to  put  forward  their 
arguments,  he  would  rush  ahead,  enjoying  the  fright 
and  dismay  of  his  helpless  victims.  At  times  he 
would  stop  to  make  some  ribald  and  jeering  remark, 
as,  "  Why  don't  you  eat  pork,  you  fools  ?  "  at  which 
the  Egyptians  following  loudly  applauded.  Philo 
and  his  comrades,  half-dead  with  agony,  could  only 
pray ;  and  in  response  to  the  prayer,  says  our  moraliz- 
ing chronicler,  the  emperor's  heart  was  turned  to 
pity,  so  that  he  dismissed  them  without  giving  any 
hostile  answer.  According  to  Josephus,  he  drove 
them  away  in  a  passion,  and  Philo  had  to  cheer  his 
companions  by  assuring  them  of  the  Divine  aid.1 

The  affair  was  a  pathetic  farce,  and  the  Jewish 
actors  in  it  had  a  sorry  time.  The  people  about  the 
palace,  taking  their  lead  from  the  emperor,  treated 
them  as  clowns,  and  hissed  and  mocked  them,  and 
even  beat  them.  The  scene  is  somewhat  revolting 
when  one  conjures  up  the  picture  of  the  aged  Jewish 
philosopher  being  roughly  handled  by  the  set  of  ruf- 
fians and  impudent  slaves  who  surrounded  a  Roman 
emperor.  Happily  Gaius  jeered  once  too  often  in  his 

1Ant.  XVIII.  8.  1. 


THE  LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  PHILO      69 

mad  life.  One  Chaerea,  a  Eoman  of  position,  nursed 
an  insult  of  the  emperor,  and  stabbed  him  shortly 
after  these  events ;  and  the  world  had  the  respite  of  a 
tolerably  sane  emperor  before  the  crowning  horror  of 
N"ero  was  let  loose  upon  it. 

The  murder  of  the  capricious  tyrant  released  not 
only  the  Jews  of  Alexandria,  but  also  the  Jews  of 
Palestine,  from  the  burden  of  fear  for  their  religion. 
The  order  had  been  given  to  set  up  a  bronze  statue  of 
the  emperor  in  the  temple;  the  Eoman  governor  Pe- 
tronius  was  averse  to  obeying  the  edict,  but  the  em- 
peror insisted.  King  Agrippa,  who  had  been  but 
lately  advanced  by  him  to  the  kingdom  of  Judaea, 
interceded  zealously  on  behalf  of  his  people.  Philo 
gives  us  an  account  of  this  appeal  by  the  Jewish  king,1 
which  recalls  at  every  turn  the  scenes  of  the  book  of 
Esther.  We  have  again  the  fasting,  the  banquet,  the 
emperor's  request,  the  appeal  of  the  royal  favorite  for 
his  people.  One  higher  critic,  indeed,  has  been  found 
to  suggest  that  the  Biblical  book  really  relates  Agrip- 
pa's  intercession  at  Rome  disguised  in  the  setting  of 
a  Persian  story.  Agrippa  secured  for  a  short  time 
the  rescission  of  the  fateful  decree,  but  the  capricious 
madman  soon  returned  to  his  old  frame  of  mind,  and 
ordered  his  image  to  be  set  up  immediately.  Had  not 
his  death  intervened,  there  would  certainly  have  been 
rebellion  in  Palestine.  As  it  was,  the  great  revolt 
was  postponed  for  thirty  years.  For  a  little  the  Jews 

1  De  Leg.,  ad  fin. 


70      PHILO-JUDyEUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

prevailed  over  their  adversaries;  the  anti-Semitic  in- 
fluences were  put  down  in  Judasa  and  in  Alexandria, 
and  in  both  places  "  there  was  light  and  joy  and  glad- 
ness for  the  Jews."  Their  political  privileges  were 
reaffirmed  by  imperial  decree,  and  Philo's  brother 
Alexander,  who  had  been  imprisoned,  was  restored  to 
honor.1  "  It  is  fitting,"  ran  the  rescript  of  Claudius, 
"to  permit  the  Jews  everywhere  under  our  sway  to 
observe  their  ancient  customs  without  hindrance. 
And  I  charge  them  to  use  my  indulgence  with  mod- 
eration, and  not  to  show  contempt  for  the  religious 
rites  of  other  peoples." 

The  note  of  triumph  rings  through  the  political 
references  to  be  found  in  the  last  parts  of  Philo's 
allegorical  commentary,  and  no  doubt  it  was  accentu- 
ated in  the  lost  book  which  he  added  as  an  epilogue, 
or  palinode,  to  his  history  of  the  embassy.  God  had 
again  preserved  his  people,  and  discomfited  their 
foes;  recently-discovered  papyri  have  revealed  that 
the  arch  anti-Semites,  Isidorus  and  Lampon,  were 
tried  at  Eome  and  executed.  Claudius  was  well- 
disposed  to  the  Jewish  race,  and  before  the  final 
storm  there  was  a  calm.  Howbeit,  after  the  death  of 
Agrippa,  in  44  c.  E.,  Judaea  became  a  Roman  prov- 
ince, and  under  the  rapacious  governorship  of  Felix 
Florus  and  Cestius  Gallus,  the  hostility  of  the  people 
to  the  Romans  grew  more  and  more  bitter.  But  in 
Alexandria  there  was  tranquillity,  or  at  least  we  know 
of  no  disquieting  events  during  the  next  decade. 

1  Ant.  XIX.  5. 


THE  LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  PHILO      71 

"  Old  age,"  said  Philo,  "  is  an  unruffled  harbor," *  and 
the  saying  refers  possibly  to  his  own  experience.  For 
he  must  have  died  full  of  years  and  full  of  honors. 
Through  his  life  he  was  the  spiritual  and  philosoph- 
ical guide,  and  finally  he  had  become  the  champion 
of  his  people  against  their  persecutors,  giving  dignity 
to  their  cause  and  inspiring  respect  even  in  their 
enemies.  He  was  happy  in  the  time  of  his  death,  for 
he  did  not  live  to  see  the  destruction  of  the  national 
home  of  his  people  and  of  that  temple  which  he  had 
loved  to  contemplate  as  the  future  centre  of  a  uni- 
versal religion.  The  disintegration  of  his  own  com- 
munity at  Alexandria  followed  full  soon  on  the 
greater  disaster;  the  temple  of  Onias  was  disman- 
tled and  interdicted  against  Jewish  worship  by  Ves- 
pasian in  the  year  73  c.  E.,  and  though,  as  has  been 
noted,  this  was  not  in  itself  of  great  importance,  it  is 
symbolic  of  the  uprooting  of  national  life  in  the  Dias- 
pora as  well  as  in  Palestine  itself.  On  the  downfall 
of  Jerusalem  in  70  c.  E.  many  of  the  extreme  anti- 
Roman  party,  known  as  the  Zealots,  fled  to  Alex- 
andria and  stirred  up  rebellion  and  dissension.  Noth- 
ing but  disaster  could  have  attended  the  outbreak,  but 
it  is  a  sad  reflection  that  the  governor  who  put  it 
down  and  ruthlessly  exterminated  the  rebels  was  none 
other  than  Tiberius  Alexander,  the  nephew  of  Philo, 
who  was  in  turn  procurator  of  Judaea  and  Egypt.  By 
another  irony  of  history  he  had  in  the  previous  year 
been  largely  instrumental  in  securing  for  Vespasian, 

*Frag.  preserved  by  John  of  Damascus,  p.  404. 


72    PHILO-JTJD;EUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

who  was  besieging  Jerusalem,  the  imperial  throne  of 
Borne.1  With  him  ends  our  knowledge  of  Philo's 
family,  and  it  ends  significantly  with  one  who  has 
ceased  to  be  a  Jew.  The  ruin  of  the  Jewish- Alex- 
andrian community  was  completed  by  a  desperate 
revolt  in  the  reign  of  Trajan,  114-117  c.  E.,  after 
which  they  were  deprived  of  their  chief  political 
privileges;  and  finally,  after  incessant  conflicts  with 
the  Christians,  they  were  expelled  from  the  city  by 
the  all-powerful  Bishop  Cyril  (415  c.  E.). 

Philo  himself  passed  out  of  Jewish  tradition 
within  a  short  time,  to  become  a  Christian  worthy. 
The  destruction  of  the  nation  and  the  gradual  sev- 
erance of  the  Christian  heresy  from  the  main  com- 
munity compelled  the  abandonment  of  missionary 
activity  and  distrust  of  the  work  of  its  exponents. 
The  dangerous  aspect  of  the  Alexandrian  development 
was  revealed.  Its  philosophical  allegorizing  might 
attract  the  Gentile  to  the  Jewish  Scriptures,  but  it 
also  led  the  Jew  away  from  his  special  conduct  of  life. 
The  Alexandrian  Church,  which  claimed  to  continue 
the  tradition  of  Philo,  departed  further  and  further 
from  the  Jewish  standpoint,  and  formulated  a  dog- 
matic creed  that  was  utterly  opposed  to  Jewish  mono- 
theism. A  philosophical  Judaism  for  the  whole  world 
was  a  splendid  ideal,  but  unfortunately  in  Philo's  time 
it  was  incapable  of  accomplishment.  The  result  of  the 
attempt  to  found  it  was  the  establishment  of  a  re- 
ligion in  which,  together  with  the  adoption  of  Hebraic 

lComp.  Ant.  XX.  5. 


THE  LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  PHILO      73 

teachings  about  God,  certain  ideas  of  Alexandrian 
mysticism  became  stereotyped  as  dogmas,  and  Jewish 
law  was  abrogated.  When  Babylon  replaced  Pales- 
tine as  the  centre  of  Jewish  intellect,  the  works  of 
Philo,  like  the  rest  of  the  Hellenistic-Jewish  litera- 
ture, written  as  they  were  in  a  strange  tongue,  fell 
into  disuse,  and  before  long  were  entirely  forgotten. 
The  Christians,  on  the  other  hand,  found  in  Philo  a 
notable  evidence  for  many  of  their  beliefs  and  a  philo- 
sophical testimony  for  the  dogmas  of  their  creed. 
They  claimed  him  as  their  own,  and  the  Church 
Fathers,  to  bind  him  more  closely  to  their  tradition, 
invented  fables  of  his  meeting  with  Peter  at  Home  and 
Mark  at  Alexandria.  They  traced,  in  the  treatise 
"  On  the  Contemplative  Life,"  a  record  of  early 
Christian  monastic  communities,  and  on  account  of 
this  book  especially  regarded  Philo  almost  with  the 
reverence  of  an  apostle.  To  the  Christian  theo- 
logians of  Alexandria  we  owe  it  that  the  interpreta- 
tion of  Judaism  to  the  Hellenic  world  in  the  light 
of  Hellenic  philosophy  has  been  preserved.  Of  the 
two  Jewish  philosophers  who  have  made  a  great 
contribution  to  the  world's  intellectual  development, 
Spinoza  was  excommunicated  in  his  lifetime,  and 
Philo  suffered  moral  excommunication  after  his 
death.  The  writings  of  both  exercised  their  chief 
influence  outside  the  community;  but  the  emanci- 
pated Jewry  of  our  own  day  can  in  either  case  recog- 
nize the  worth  of  the  thinker,  and  point  with  pride 
to  the  saintliness  of  the  man. 


Ill 

PHILO'S  WOKKS  AND  METHOD 

The  first  thing  that  strikes  a  reader  of  Philo  is 
the  great  volume  of  his  work:  he  is  the  first  Jewish 
writer  to  produce  a  large  and  systematic  body  of 
writings,  the  first  to  develop  anything  in  the  nature 
of  a  complete  Jewish  philosophy.  He  had  essentially 
the  literary  gift,  the  capacity  of  giving  lasting  expres- 
sion to  his  own  thought  and  the  thought  of  his  gen- 
eration. Treating  him  merely  as  a  man  of  letters, 
he  is  one  of  the  chief  figures  in  Greek  literature  of 
the  first  century.  We  have  extant  over  forty  books 
of  his  composition,  and  nearly  as  many  again  have 
disappeared.  His  works  are  one  and  all  expositions 
of  Judaism,  but  they  fall  into  six  distinct  classes  of 
exegesis : 

I.  The  allegorical  commentary,  or  "Allegories  of 
the  Laws/'  which  is  a  series  of  philosophical  treatises 
based  upon  continuous  texts  in  Genesis,  from  the  first 
to  the  eighteenth  chapter.     Together  with  this,  the 
best  authorities  place  the  two  remaining  books  on  the 
"  Dreams  of  the  Bible,"  which  are  a  portion  of  a 
larger  work,  and  deal  allegorically  with  the  dreams  of 
Jacob  and  Joseph. 

II.  The  Midrashic  commentary  on  the  Five  Books 
of  Moses,  for  which  we  have  no  single  name,  but 


PHILO'S  WORKS  AND  METHOD         75 

which  was  clearly  intended  to  be  an  ethical  and  philo- 
sophical treatise  upon  the  whole  law. 

III.  A  commentary  in  the  form  of  "  Questions  and 
Answers  to  Genesis  and  Exodus,"  which  is  incomplete 
now,  and  save  for  detached  fragments  exists  only  in 
a  Latin  translation.    In  its  original  form  it  provided 
a  short  running  exegesis,  verse  by  verse,  to  the  whole 
of  the  first  three  books  of  the  Pentateuch,  and  was 
contained  in  twelve  parts. 

IV.  A  popular  and  missionizing  presentation  of 
the  Jewish  system  in  the  form  of  a  "  Life  of  Moses," 
and  three  appended  tractates  on  the  virtues  "  Cour- 
age," "  Humanity,"  and  "  Repentance."     Scholars  * 
are  of  opinion  that  there  are  gaps  in  the  extant  "  Life 
of  Moses,"  but  the  general  plan  of  the  work  is  clear. 
It  is  at  once  an  abstract  and  an  interpretation  of 
Jewish  law  for  the  Greek  world,  and  also  an  ideal 
biography  of  the  Jewish  lawgiver. 

V.  Philosophical   monographs,   not   so  intimately 
connected  with  the  Bible  as  the  preceding  works ;  but 
in  the  nature  of  rhetorical  exercises  upon  the  stock 
subjects  of  the  schools,  which  receive  a  Jewish  color- 
ing by  reason  of  Biblical  illustrations. 

VI.  Historical  and  apologetic  works  that  set  out 
the  case  of  the  contemporary  Jews  against  their  per- 
secutors and  traducers.     Of  these  writings  the  larger 
part  has  disappeared,  and  of  a  portion  of  those  which 
remain  the  genuineness  has  been  doubted. 

Lastly,  there  is  a  miscellaneous  number  of  works 

1  Comp.  Massebieau,  op.  cit. 


76      PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDKIA 

ascribed  to  Philo,  which  all  good  scholars l  now  admit 
to  be  spurious :  "  On  the  Incorruptibility  of  the 
World/'  "  On  the  Universe,"  "  On  Samson,"  and  "On 
Jonah/'  etc. 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  classification  of  Philo's 
works,  that  he  has  dealt  in  several  ways  with  the  Bib- 
lical material.  The  reason  of  this  is  partly  that  his 
mind  developed,  and  the  interpretation  of  his  maturer 
years  differed  widely  from  that  of  his  earliest  writings. 
Partly,  however,  it  arises  from  the  fact  that  the  dif- 
ferent treatments  were  meant  for  different  audiences, 
and  Philo  always  took  the  measure  of  those  whom  he 
was  addressing.  His  most  representative  works  are 
"  a  triple  cord "  with  which  he  binds  the  Jewish 
Scripture  to  Greek  culture.  For  the  Greek-speaking 
populace  he  set  out  a  broad  statement  of  the  Mosaic 
law;  for  the  cultured  community  of  Alexandria,  Jew 
and  Gentile,  a  more  elaborate  exegesis,  in  which  each 
character  and  each  ordinance  of  the  Pentateuch  re- 
ceived a  particular  ethical  value ;  and,  finally,  for  the 
esoteric  circle  of  Hellenic-Jewish  philosophers,  a  the- 
ological and  psychological  study  of  the  allegories  of 
the  law.  Origen,  the  first  great  Christian  exegete  of 
the  Bible  and  a  close  student  of  the  Philonic  writings, 
distinguished  three  forms  of  interpreting:  the  his- 
torical, the  moral,  and  the  philosophical;  he  proba- 
bly took  the  distinction  from  Philo,  who  exemplifies 
it  in  his  commentaries  upon  the  Books  of  Moses. 

1  Comp.  Bernays,  Ueber  die  unter  Philos  Werken  steh- 
enden  Schriften  nepl  rfc  aqdapaiaq  K.6c[tov,  and  Siegfried,  art. 
"  Philo  "  in  the  Jewish  Encyclopedia. 


PHILO'S  WORKS  AND  METHOD         77 

Varied  as  is  its  scope,  the  religious  idea  dominates 
all  his  work,  and  endows  it  with  one  spirit.  Whether 
he  is  writing  philosophical,  ethical,  or  mystical  com- 
mentary, whether  history,  apology,  or  essay,  his  pur- 
pose is  to  assert  the  true  notion  of  the  one  God,  and 
the  Divine  excellence  of  God's  revelation  to  His 
chosen  people.  Thus  he  regards  history  as  a  theodicy, 
vindicating  the  ways  of  God  to  man,  and  His  special 
providence  for  Israel;  philosophy  as  the  inner  mean- 
ing of  the  Scriptures,  revealed  by  God  in  mystic  com- 
munion with  His  holy  prophets,1  and,  if  comprehended 
aright,  able  to  lead  us  on  to  a  true  conception  of  His 
Divine  being.  The  greater  part  of  the  Hellenistic- 
Jewish  literature  has  disappeared,  but  Philo  sums  up 
for  us  the  whole  of  the  Alexandrian  development  of 
Judaism.  He  represents  it  worthily  in  both  its  main 
aspects :  the  infusion  of  Greek  culture  into  the  Jewish 
pursuit  of  righteousness,  and  the  recommendation  of 
Jewish  monotheism  and  the  Torah  to  the  Greek  world. 
Aristagus,  Aristobulus,  and  Artapanus  are  hardly  more 
than  names,  but  their  spirit  is  inherited  and  glorified 
in  Philo-Judseus.  His  work,  therefore,  is  more  than 
the  expression  of  one  great  mind ;  it  is  the  record  and 
expression  of  a  great  culture. 

The  chronology  of  Philo's  writings  is  as  uncertain 
as  the  chronology  of  his  life.  Yet  it  is  possible  to 
trace  a  deepening  of  outlook  and  an  increasing  origi- 
nality, if  we  work  our  way  up  from  the  sixth  to  the 

1  Quod  Deus  86. 


78      PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

first  division  of  the  classification.  It  does  not  follow 
that  the  works  were  written  in  this  order — and  it  may 
well  be  that  Philo  was  producing  at  one  and  the  same 
time  books  of  several  classes — but  we  may  use  this 
order  as  an  ideal  scale  by  which  to  mark  off  the  stages 
of  his  philosophical  progress.  In  the  first  place  come 
the  Troflerwa,  or  apologetic  works,  which  have  a  prac- 
tical purpose.  With  these  we  may  associate  the 
moralizing  history  that  dealt  in  five  books  respectively 
with  the  persecutions  of  Sejanus,  Flaccus,  and  Calig- 
ula, the  ill-starred  embassy,  and  the  final  triumph  of 
the  Jews  over  their  enemies.  The  'Tnoffertxa  proper,  as 
we  gather  from  Eusebius,  contained  a  general  apology 
for  Judaism,  and  an  account  of  the  Essenes — which 
have  disappeared — and  the  suspected  book  on  the 
Therapeutic  sect  known  by  the  title  "  On  the  Contem- 
plative Life."  Whether  they  received  this  generic 
name  because  they  are  suggestions  for  the  Jewish 
cause,  or  because  they  are  written  to  answer  the  in- 
sinuations (xaff9  vxoffsfftv)  of  adversaries,  is  a  moot 
point.  But  their  general  purport  is  clear :  they  were 
an  apologetic  presentation  of  Jewish  life,  written  to 
show  the  falsity  of  anti-Semitic  calumnies.  The  Jews 
are  good  citizens  and  their  manner  of  life  is  humani- 
tarian. The  Essene  sect  is  a  living  proof  of  Jewish 
practical  socialism  and  practical  philosophy,  the  The- 
rapeuta3  show  the  Jewish  zeal  for  the  contemplative 
life. 

Next  we  come  to  Philo's  philosophical  monographs, 
which  are  not,  as  one  might  expect,  the  work  of  his 


PHILO'S  WORKS  AND  METHOD         79 

mature  thought,  but  rather  the  exercises  of  youth. 
Dissertations  or  declamations  upon  hackneyed  sub- 
jects were  part  of  the  regular  course  of  the  university 
student  at  Alexandria,  and  Philo  prepared  himself 
for  his  Jewish  philosophy  by  composing  in  the  ap- 
proved style  essays  upon  "  Providence,"  "  The  Lib- 
erty of  the  Good,"  and  "  The  Slavery  of  the  Wicked," 
etc.  What  chiefly  distinguishes  them  above  other  col- 
lections of  commonplaces  is  the  appeal  to  the  Bible 
for  types  of  goodness,  and  here  again  the  Essenes  fig- 
ure as  the  type  of  the  philosophical  life.1  The  writer, 
while  still  engaged  in  the  studies  of  the  Greek  univer- 
sity, is  feeling  his  way  towards  his  system  of  universal 
Mosaism. 

This  he  expounds  confidently  and  enthusiastically 
in  his  "  Life  of  Moses."  Philo  in  this  book  is  not  any 
longer  the  apt  pupil  of  Greek  philosophers,  nor  the 
eloquent  defender  of  the  Jewish-Alexandrian  com- 
munity against  lying  detractors.  He  preaches  a  mis- 
sion to  the  whole  world,  and  he  lays  before  it  his 
gospel  of  monotheism  and  humanity.  Each  Greek 
school  has  its  ideal  type,  its  Socrates,  Diogenes,  or 
Pythagoras ;  but  Philo  places  above  them  all  "  the 
most  perfect  man  that  ever  lived,  Moses,  the  legislator 
of  the  Jews,2  as  some  hold,  but  according  to  others 
the  interpreter  of  the  sacred  laws,  and  the  greatest 
of  men  in  every  way."  And  above  all  the  ethical 
systems  of  the  day  he  sets  the  law  of  life  that  God 

1  Quod  Omnis  Probus  Liber  12  ff. 

2  De  V.  Mos.  I.  1. 


80      PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

revealed  to  His  greatest  prophet :  "  The  laws  of  the 
Greek  legislators  are  continually  subject  to  change; 
the  laws  of  Moses  alone  remain  steady,  unmoved,  un- 
shaken, stamped  as  it  were  with  the  seal  of  nature 
herself,  from  the  day  when  they  were  written  to  the 
present  day,  and  will  so  remain  for  all  time  so  long 
as  the  world  endures.  Not  only  the  Jews  but  all 
other  peoples  who  care  for  righteousness  adopt  them. 
....  Let  all  men  follow  this  code  and  the  age 
of  universal  peace  will  come  about,  the  kingdom  of 
God  on  earth  will  be  established." J  Nor  is  the  Greek 
to  fear  the  lot  of  a  proselyte.  "  God  loves  the  man 
who  turns  from  idolatry  to  the  true  faith  not  less  than 
the  man  who  has  been  a  believer  all  his  life ; " 2  and 
in  the  little  essays  upon  Repentance  and  Nobility, 
which  are  attached  to  the  larger  treatise,  Philo  ap- 
peals to  his  own  people  to  welcome  the  stranger 
within  the  community.  "  The  Life  of  Moses  "  is  the 
greatest  attempt  to  set  monotheism  before  the  world 
made  before  the  Christian  gospels.  And  it  is  truer 
to  the  Jewish  spirit,  because  it  breathes  on  every  page 
love  for  the  Torah.  Philo  in  very  truth  wished  to 
fulfil  the  law. 

If  Judaism  was  to  be  the  universal  religion,  it  must 
be  shown  to  contain  the  ultimate  truth  both  about 
real  being,  i.  e.  God,  and  about  ethics;  for  the  philo- 
sophical world  in  that  age — and  the  philosophical 
world  included  all  educated  people — demanded  of 

1  De  V.  Mos.  II.  5. 

3 "  On  Repentance,"  II. 


PHILO'S  WORKS  AND  METHOD         81 

religion  that  it  should  be  philosophical,  and  of 
philosophy  that  it  should  be  religious.  The  de- 
sire to  expound  Judaism  in  this  way  is  the  motive 
of  Philo's  three  Biblical  commentaries.  The  "  Ques- 
tions and  Answers  to  Genesis  and  Exodus  "  constitute 
a  preliminary  study  to  the  more  elaborate  works 
which  followed.  In  them  Philo  is  collecting  his  ma- 
terial, formulating  his  ideas,  and  determining  the 
main  lines  of  his  allegory.  They  are  a  type  of  Mid- 
rash  in  its  elementary  stage,  the  explanation  of  the 
teacher  to  the  pupil  who  has  difficulties  about  the 
words  of  the  law :  at  once  like  and  unlike  the  old  Tan- 
naitic  Midrash ;  like  in  that  they  deal  with  difficulties 
in  the  literal  text  of  the  Bible ;  unlike  in  that  the  reply 
of  Philo  is  Agadic  more  usually  than  Halakic,  specu- 
lative rather  than  practical.  In  these  books,1  as  has 
been  pointed  out,  there  are  numerous  interpretations 
which  Philo  shares  with  the  Palestinian  schools.  A 
few  specimens  taken  from  the  first  book  will  illustrate 
Philo's  plan,  but  it  should  be  mentioned  that  in  every 
case  he  sets  out  the  simple  meaning  of  the  text,  the 
Peshat,  as  well  as  the  inner  meaning,  or  Derash. 

"Why  does  it  say:  'And  God  made  every  green 
herb  of  the  field  before  it  was  upon  the  earth '?  (Gen. 
ii.  4.) 

"By  these  words  he  suggests  symbolically  the  in- 
corporeal Idea.  The  phrase,  '  before  it  was  upon  the 
earth/  marks  the  original  perfection  of  every  plant 

*  Comp.  Treitel,  Agadah  Bet  Philo.  Monatsschrift,  1909. 
6 


82      PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

and  herb.  The  eternal  types  were  first  created  in  the 
noetic  world,  and  the  physical  objects  on  earth,  per- 
ceptible by  the  senses,  were  made  in  their  likeness." 

In  this  way  Philo  reads  into  the  first  chapter  of  the 
Bible  the  Platonic  idealism  which  we  shall  see  was 
a  fundamental  part  of  his  philosophy. 

"Why,  when  Enoch  died,  does  it  say,  'And  he 
pleased  God'?  (Gen.  v.  24.) 

"  He  says  this  to  teach  that  the  soul  is  immortal, 
inasmuch  as  after  it  is  released  from  the  body  it  con- 
tinues to  please." 

"  What  is  the  meaning  of  the  expression,  '  And 
Noah  opened  the  roof  of  the  ark'?  (Gen.  viii.  13.) 

"The  text  appears  to  need  no  interpretation;  but 
in  its  symbolical  meaning  the  ark  is  our  body,  and 
that  which  covers  the  body  and  for  a  long  time  pre- 
serves its  strength  is  spoken  of  as  its  roof.  And  this 
is  appetite.  Hence  when  the  mind  is  attracted  by 
a  desire  for  heavenly  things,  it  springs  upwards  and 
makes  away  with  all  material  desires.  It  removes 
that  which  threw  a  shade  over  it  so  as  to  reach  the 
eternal  Ideas." 

The  "  Questions  and  Answers  "  are  essentially  He- 
braic in  form,  designed  for  Jews  who  knew  and 
studied  their  Bible ;  and  we  can  feel  in  them  the  influ- 
ences of  a  training  in  traditional  Mishnah  and  Mid- 
rash;  but  Philo  passed  from  them  to  a  more  artistic 
expression  and  a  more  thoroughly  Hellenized  presen- 
tation of  the  philosophy  of  the  Bible.  This  work 
is  the  largest  extant  expression  of  his  thought  and 
mission;  it  embraces  the  treatises  which  we  know 


PHILO'S  WORKS  AND  METHOD         83 

as  "On  the  Creation  of  the  World,"  "The  Lives 
of  Abraham  and  Joseph/'  "  On  the  Decalogue," 
and  finally  those  "  On  the  Specific  Laws,"  which  are 
partly  thus  entitled  and  partly  have  separate  ethical 
names,  as  "  On  Honoring  Parents,"  "  On  Rewards 
and  Punishments,"  "  On  Justice,"  etc.  Large  por- 
tions of  it  have  disappeared,  notably  the  "Lives  of 
Isaac  and  Jacob  " ;  and  also  the  "  Life  of  Moses," 
which  was  introductory  to  his  laws.  For  the  book 
which  we  have  under  that  name  does  not  belong  to 
the  series,  but  is  separate.  The  purpose  of  the  work 
broadly  is  to  deepen  the  value  of  the  Bible  for  the 
Jews  by  revealing  its  constant  spiritual  message,  and 
to  assert  its  value  for  the  whole  of  humanity  by  show- 
ing in  it  a  philosophical  conception  of  the  universe 
and  its  creation,  the  most  lofty  ethical  and  moral 
types,  the  most  admirable  laws,  and,  above  all,  the 
purest  ideas  of  God  and  His  relation  to  man.  All 
that  seems  tribal  and  particularist  is  explained  away, 
and  the  spiritual  aspect  of  every  chapter — of  every 
word  almost — of  the  Torah  is  emphasized.  Philo  ex- 
pounds the  sacred  book,  not  of  one  particular  nation, 
but  of  mankind.  The  Roman  and  Greek  peoples  were 
waiting  for  a  religious  message  which  should  at  once 
harmonize  with  rational  ideas  and  satisfy  their  long- 
ing for  God.  All  the  philosophical  schools  were  con- 
verting the  scientific  systems  of  the  classical  age  into 
Tponoi  Bioo,  "  plans  of  life,"  and  Philo  challenges 
them  all  with  a  new  faith  which  has  as  its  basis  a 
God  who  not  only  was  the  sole  Creator  and  Ruler  of 


84      PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

the  world,  but  who  had  revealed  to  man  the  way  of 
happiness,  and  the  good  life,  social  as  well  as  individ- 
ual. To-day,  when  the  world  about  us  has  accepted — 
or  has  professed  to  accept — the  ethical  law  of  the 
Bible,  we  are  apt  to  regard  the  essentials  of  Judaism 
as  the  belief  in  One  God  and  the  observance  of  cere- 
monies. But  to  Philo  Judaism  was  something  more 
comprehensive.  It  was  the  spiritual  life,  and  the  Mo- 
saic law  is  the  complete  code  of  the  Divine  Republic, 
of  which  all  are  or  can  be  citizens.  In  the  introduc- 
tion to  the  "Life  of  Abraham,"  Philo  explains  the 
scheme  of  his  work : * 

"  '  The  Sacred  Laws  '  [as  he  regularly  calls  the  Bible] 
were  written  in  five  books,  of  which  the  first  is  entitled 
Genesis.  It  derives  its  title  from  the  account  of  the 
creation  which  it  contains,  though  it  deals  also  with 
endless  other  subjects,  peace  and  war,  hunger  and  plenty, 
great  cataclysms,  and  the  histories  of  good  and  evil  men. 
We  have  examined  with  great  care  the  accounts  of  the 
creation  in  our  former  treatise  ['  On  the  Making  of  the 
Universe'],  and  we  now  go  on  naturally  to  inquire  into 
the  laws;  and  postponing  the  particular  laws,  which  are 
as  it  were  copies,  we  will  first  of  all  examine  the  more 
universal,  which  are  their  models.  Now  men  who  have 
lived  irreproachable  lives  are  these  laws,  and  their  vir- 
tues are  recorded  in  the  Holy  Scriptures  not  only  by  way 
of  eulogy,  but  in  order  to  lead  on  those  who  read  about 
them  to  emulate  their  life.  They  are  become  living 
standards  of  right  reason,  whom  the  lawgiver  has  glori- 
fied for  two  reasons:  (1)  To  show  that  the  laws  laid 
down  are  consistent  with  nature  [the  conception  of  a 

1  De  Abr.  12. 


PHILO'S  WORKS  AND  METHOD         85 

natural  law  binding  upon  all  peoples  was  one  of  the 
fixed  ideas  of  the  age].  (2)  To  show  that  it  is  not  a 
matter  of  terrible  labor  to  live  according  to  our  positive 
laws  if  a  man  has  the  will  to  do  so;  seeing  that  the 
patriarchs  spontaneously  followed  the  unwritten  prin- 
ciples before  any  of  the  particular  laws  were  written. 
So  that  a  man  may  properly  say  that  the  code  of  law  is 
only  a  memorial  of  the  lives  of  the  patriarchs.  For  the 
patriarchs,  of  their  own  accord  and  impulse,  chose  to 
follow  nature,  and,  regarding  her  course  with  truth  as 
the  most  ancient  ordinance,  they  lived  a  life  according 
to  the  law." 

Philo  dwells  affectionately  on  the  patriarchs,  be- 
cause, as  he  held,  they  proved  the  Jewish  life  to  be 
truest  to  man's  nature  and  to  the  highest  ideal  of 
humanity,  and  served  therefore  as  examples  to  the 
Gentile  world  of  the  universal  truth  of  the  religion. 
The  rabbis  also  took  the  patriarchs  as  the  perfect 
type  of  our  life,  saying,  "  Everything  that  happens 
to  them  is  a  sign  to  future  generations," 1  and  again : 
"The  patriarchs  are  the  true  H231D,  manifestation 
of  God."  But  while  he  emphasized  the  broad  moral 
teachings  of  Judaism  exemplified  by  the  patriarchs, 
Philo  nevertheless  upheld  in  its  integrity  the  Mosaic 
law,  and  found  in  every  one  of  the  six  hundred 
and  thirteen  precepts  a  spiritual  meaning.  Even  the 
details  of  the  tabernacle  offerings  have  their  univer- 
sal lesson  when  he  expounds  them  as  symbols.  Vol- 
taire speaks  cynically  of  Judaism  as  a  religion  of 
sacrifices :  Philo  shows  that  the  ritual  of  sacrifice  sug- 

lComp.  Bereshit  Rabba  47. 


86      PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

gests  moral  lessons.  The  command  of  the  red  heifer, 
a  part  of  the  law  which  was  particularly  subject  to 
attack,  emphasizes  the  law  of  moral  as  well  as  of 
physical  cleanliness.  The  prohibition  to  add  honey  or 
leaven  to  the  sacrifice1  (Lev.  ii.  13)  points  the  lesson 
that  all  superfluous  pleasure  is  unrighteous ;  and  so  on 
with  each  prescription. 

The  Mosaic  code  in  his  exposition  is  commensurate 
with  life  in  all  its  aspects.  It  deals  not  only  with  the 
duties  of  the  individual  but  also  with  the  good  govern- 
ment of  the  state.  The  life  of  Joseph  is  made  the 
text  of  a  political  treatise,  and  throughout  the  books 
"  On  the  Specific  Laws,"  the  socialism  of  the  Bible  is 
emphasized,2  and  held  up  as  the  ideal  order  of  the 
future.  The  Jewish  State  is  enlarged  in  Philo's 
vision  from  a  national  theocracy  into  a  world-city 
inspired  by  the  two  ideas  of  love  of  God  and  love  of 
humanity.  In  this  conception,  no  doubt,  the  influence 
of  Greek  philosophy  is  to  be  seen;  the  Jewish  inter- 
preter keeps  before  him  the  "Eepublic"  of  Plato, 
and  the  "  Polity  "  of  Aristotle.  With  him,  however, 
the  ideal  state  is  not  a  vision  "  laid  up  in  heaven  " ;  * 
its  foundation  is  already  laid  upon  earth,  its  capital  is 
Jerusalem,  and  it  is  the  mission  of  his  people  to  ex- 
tend its  borders  till  it  embraces  all  nations  * — an  idea 
which  permeates  the  Jewish  litany. 

This  commentary  of  the  law  is  allegorical  in  the 

1  De  Sac.  et  Victimis  5  and  6. 
*DeMon.  II.  3  ff. 
*  Comp.  Plato,  Rep.  V,  ad  fin. 
4  De  Exsecr.  II.  587. 


PHILO'S  WOKKS  AND  METHOD         87 

sense  that  beneath  the  particular  law  the  interpreter 
constantly  reveals  a  spiritual  idea,  but  it  is  not  alle- 
gorical in  the  sense  that  he  makes  an  exchange  of 
values.  He  is  not  for  the  most  part  reading  into  the 
text  conceptions  which  are  not  suggested  by  it,  but 
really  and  truly  expounding;  and  where  he  gives 
a  philosophical  piece  of  exegesis,  as  when  he  explains 
the  visit  of  the  three  angels  to  Abraham  as  a  theory 
of  the  human  soul  about  God's  being,1  he  does  so  with 
diffidence  or  with  reference  to  authorities  that  have 
founded  a  tradition.  It  is  quite  otherwise  with  the 
last  class  of  Philo's  work,  the  fruit  of  his  maturest 
thought,  with  which  it  remains  to  deal. 

Throughout  the  "  Allegories  of  the  Laws  "  he  takes 
the  verse  of  the  Bible  not  so  much  as  a  text  to  be 
amplified  and  interpreted,  but  as  a  pretext  for  a  philo- 
sophical disquisition.  The  allegories  indeed  are  only 
in  form  a  commentary  on  the  Bible;  in  one  aspect 
they  are  a  history  of  the  human  soul,  which,  if  they 
had  been  completed,  would  have  traced  the  upward 
progress  from  Adam  to  Moses.  It  is  not  to  be  ex- 
pected, however,  that  Philo  should  adhere  closely  to 
any  plan  in  the  allegories.  Theology,  metaphysics, 
and  ethics  have  as  large  a  part  in  the  medley  of  philo- 
sophical ideas  as  the  story  of  the  soul.  His  Hebraic 
mind,  even  when  fortified  by  the  mastery  of  Greek 
philosophy,  was  unable  to  present  its  ideas  systemati- 
cally; it  passed  from  subject  to  subject,  weaving  the 
whole  together  only  by  the  thread  of  a  continuous 

lDe  Abr.  3. 


88      PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

commentary  upon  Genesis.  Parts  of  the  work  are 
missing,  it  is  true,  which  adds  to  the  seeming  want 
of  plan ;  and — greatest  loss  of  all — the  first  part,  which 
gave  the  philosophical  account  of  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis,  the  first  six  days  of  creation,  referred  to  as 
"  The  Hexameron  "  (TO  'Efypspov},  has  disappeared.1 
Here  must  have  been  the  general  introduction  to  the 
allegories,  wherein  Philo  declared  his  purpose  and  his 
method  of  exposition.  The  first  treatise  that  we  pos- 
sess starts  abruptly  with  a  comment  on  the  first  verse 
of  the  second  chapter,  " '  And  the  heaven  and  earth 
and  all  their  world  were  completed/  Moses  has 
previously  related  the  creation  of  the  mind  and  sense, 
and  now  he  proceeds  to  describe  their  perfection. 
Their  perfection  is  not  the  individual  mind  or  sense, 
but  their  archetypal  '  ideas/  And  symbolically  he 
calls  the  mind  heaven,  because  in  heaven  are  the  ideas 
of  the  mind,  and  the  sense  he  calls  earth,  because  it  is 
corporeal  and  material."5 

So  in  a  rambling,  unsystematic  way  Philo  embarks 
upon  a  discourse  on  idealism  and  psychology,  making 
a  fresh  start  continually  from  a  verse  or  a  phrase  of 
the  Bible.  The  Biblical  narrative  in  the  earliest 
chapters  offered  a  congenial  soil  for  his  explorations, 
but  no  ground  is  too  stubborn  for  his  seed.  The  gene- 
alogy of  Noah's  sons  is  as  fertile  in  suggestion  as  the 
story  of  Adam  and  Eve,  for  each  name  represents 
some  hidden  power  or  possesses  some  ethical  import. 

1  Comp.  L.  A.  II.  4. 
*£,.  A.  I.  1. 


PHILO'S  WORKS  AND  METHOD         89 

The  allegorical  commentary  is  clearly  the  work  of 
Philo's  maturity,  wherein  he  exhibits  full  mastery  of 
an  original  method  of  exegesis.  His  allegories  are  no 
longer  tentative,  and  he  writes  with  the  confidence  of 
the  sage,  who  has  received  not  only  the  admiration  of 
his  people,  but  the  inspiration  of  God.  Another  sign 
of  their  maturity  is  that  asceticism  seems  no  longer 
the  true  path  to  virtue,  as  it  was  to  the  author  of 
"The  Lives  of  the  Patriarchs"  and  "The  Specific 
Laws,"  but,  on  the  contrary,  a  moderate  use  of  the 
world's  goods  and  a  share  in  political  life  are  marks 
of  the  perfect  man.  These  characteristics  bespeak  the 
firmer  hand  and  the  profounder  experience.  Yet  the 
series  of  works  which  form  together  Philo's  esoteric 
doctrine  were  certainly  put  together  over  a  long  period 
of  years,  as  the  varied  political  references  indicate. 
It  has  indeed  been  suggested  by  a  modern  German 
scholar l  that  large  parts  were  originally  given  in  the 
form  of  detached  lectures  and  sermons,  and  that 
Philo  later  composed  them  together  into  a  continuous 
commentary,  working  them  up  with  much  literary 
elaboration.  In  support  of  this  theory,  it  may  be 
urged  that  several  of  the  treatises  contain  political 
addresses  to  public  audiences,  notably  the  De  Agricid- 
tura  and  De  Confusione  Linguarum,  while  in  others 
there  are  invocations  to  prayer,  or  a  summons  to  read 
a  passage  in  the  Bible,  addressed  apparently  by  the 
preacher  to  the  Hazan,  who  had  before  him  the  scroll 
of  the  law.  From  Philo's  own  statements  we  know 
that  the  wisest  men  used  to  deliver  philosophical 

1  Comp.  Freudenthal,  Hellenistische  Studien. 


90      PHILO-JUD^ETJS  OF  ALEXANDEIA 

homilies  upon  the  Bible  on  the  Sabbath  day;  and 
it  is  natural  that  the  man  who  was  appointed  to 
head  the  Jewish  embassy  to  Gaius  had  made  him- 
self known  in  the  past  to  his  brethren  for  oratory 
and  wisdom  of  speech.  "  Sermons/'  said  Jowett, 
"  though  they  deal  with  eternal  subjects,  are  the  most 
evanescent  form  of  literature."  The  dictum  is  true 
for  the  most  part,  but  occasionally  the  sermon,  by 
its  depth  of  thought,  the  universality  of  its  message, 
and  the  beauty  of  its  expression,  has  become  part  of 
the  world's  heritage  from  the  ages.  Moreover,  at 
Alexandria  philosophy  was  associated  with  preaching. 
And  the  sermons  of  the  Jewish-Hellenistic  writer, 
in  their  style  as  well  as  in  their  thought,  represent 
an  epoch.  Philo  spoke  in  the  language  of  the  intel- 
lectual world  of  his  day,  and  strove  to  associate  the 
intellectual  precepts  of  Hellenism  with  the  Hebraic 
passion  for  righteousness.  In  his  great  moments, 
however,  the  Hebraic  spirit  towers  supreme.  "  He 
was,"  said  Croiset,  the  historian  of  Greek  literature, 
"  the  first  Greek  prose  writer  who  could  speak  to 
God  and  of  God  to  man  with  the  ardent  piety  and 
reverence  of  the  Jewish  prophets." x 

It  is  a  serious  misconception  to  imagine  that  Philo's 
philosophical  allegories  were  meant  for  the  general 
body  of  Alexandrian  Jews.  He  frequently*  declares 
that  he  is  speaking  to  a  specially  initiated  sect,  and 
warns  his  hearers  not  to  divulge  his  teaching.  The 

1  Croiset,  op.  cit.  V,  p.  427. 
JComp.  De  Cherubim,  passim. 


PHILO'S  WOKKS  AND  METHOD         91 

notion  of  an  esoteric  doctrine  for  the  aristocracy 
of  intellect  had  become  a  fixed  idea  in  the  Greek 
schools  for  three  centuries,  ever  since  the  days  of 
Aristotle;  and  whether  through  Greek  influence  or 
otherwise  it  had  been  generally  adopted  by  the  Jewish 
teachers.  The  rabbis  of  the  Talmud  derived  from  the 
first  chapters  of  Genesis  the  inner  mystery  of  the  law, 
which  was  cognizable  only  by  the  sage ;  and  the  same 
idea  is  found  in  later  Jewish  tradition,  which,  ex- 
pounding Paradise  (D"na)  as  four  stages  of  interpre- 
tation, each  marked  by  a  letter  of  the  word,  Peshat, 
Eemez,  Derash,  and  Sod  (iio),1  regarded  the  last  as 
the  final  reward  of  the  devoted  seeker  after  God,  as 
it  is  said  in  the  Psalms,  "  The  secret  of  the  Lord  is 
for  those  who  fear  Him."  Jewish  religious  philos- 
ophers have  in  all  ages  designed  their  work  for  a 
select  few.  The  Halakah,  or  way  of  life,  is  the  fit 
study  of  the  many.  So  Maimonides  wrote  his  Moreh 
only  for  those  who  already  were  masters  of  the  law. 
And  Philo  likewise  at  Alexandria  taught  an  esoteric 
doctrine  to  an  esoteric  circle,  which  alone  was  fitted 
to  receive  the  profoundest  theology.2  The  allegories 
of  the  law  do  not  take  the  place  of  the  law  itself,  nor 
of  its  ethical  ordinances.  They  are  additional  to  the 
other  exegesis  and  distinct,  destined  only  for  the  man 
of  learning.  And  as  we  shall  see,  he  asserts  em- 
phatically in  the  midst  of  his  allegories  *  that  the 

1  Comp.  Zohar  III. 

2  De  Cherubim  9  and  14,  De  Somn.  8. 
>De  Migr.  12. 


92      PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDKIA 

perception  of  the  philosophical  value  does  not  release 
man  from  the  practice  itself.  The  wise  man  even 
as  the  fool  must  obey  the  law. 

Why,  it  may  be  asked,  does  Philo  artificially  attach 
his  philosophy  to  the  Scriptures?  He  does  so  for  two 
reasons:  first,  because  he  holds  and  wishes  to  prove 
that  between  faith  and  philosophy  there  is  no  conflict, 
and  his  generation  worked  out  the  agreement  by  this 
method ;  he  does  so  also  because  he  wishes  to  establish 
the  Torah  and  Judaism  upon  a  sure  foundation  for 
the  man  of  outside  culture.  The  pursuit  of  philosophy 
must  have  menaced  the  attachment  to  Judaism  and 
challenged  the  authority  of  the  Bible  at  Alexandria.  A 
superficial  knowledge  of  the  materialistic  or  rational- 
istic theories,  which  were  propagated  respectively  by 
the  Epicurean  and  Stoic  schools,  was  made  the  excuse 
for  indifference  to  the  law.  Then  as  now  the  ad- 
vanced Jew  would  mask  his  self-indulgence  under 
the  guise  of  a  banal  philosophy,  and  jeer  easily  at 
archaic  myths  and  tribal  laws.  The  dominating  mo- 
tive of  Philo's  work  is  to  show  that  the  Bible  contains 
for  those  who  will  seek  it  the  richest  treasures  of  wis- 
dom, that  its  ethical  teaching  is  more  ideal  and  yet 
more  real  than  that  which  hundreds  of  sophists 
poured  forth  daily  in  the  lecture-theatres 1  to  the  gap- 
ing dilettanti  of  learning,  and  lastly  that  the  cultured 
Jew  may  search  out  knowledge  and  truth  to  their 
depths,  and  find  them  expressed  in  his  holy  books  and 

lDe  Post.  C.  22. 


PHILO'S  WORKS  AND  METHOD        93 

in  his  religious  beliefs  and  practices.  Philo  frequently 
introduces  into  his  philosophical  interpretation  a  po- 
lemic against  the  disintegrating  and  demoralizing 
forces  which  were  at  work  in  the  Alexandria  of  his  day. 
His  commentary  therefore  is  a  strange  medley,  com- 
pounded of  idealistic  speculation,  theology,  honailetics, 
moral  denunciation,  and  polemical  rhetoric.  The  idea, 
which  is  not  uncommon,  that  Philo  represents  the 
extreme  Hellenic  development  of  Judaism,  and  that 
he  gathered  into  his  writings  the  opinions  of  all 
Greek  schools  to  the  ruin  of  his  Jewish  individuality, 
is  utterly  erroneous.  In  fact,  he  chooses  out  only  the 
valuable  parts  of  Greek  thought,  which  could  enter 
into  a  true  harmony  with  the  Hebraic  spirit;  and  he 
not  only  rejects,  but  he  attacks  unsparingly  those 
elements  which  were  antagonistic  to  holiness  and 
righteousness.  With  the  enthusiasm  of  a  Maccabee, 
if  with  other  weapons,  he  fought  against  the  bastard 
culture,  which  meant  self-indulgence  and  the  exces- 
sive attention  to  the  body,  the  idol-worship,  the  de- 
graded ideas  of  the  Divine  power,  and  the  disregard  of 
truth  and  justice,  that  were  current  in  the  pagan 
society  about  him.  The  seeking  after  sensual  pleas- 
ure and  luxury  was  the  most  glaring  evil  of  his  city — 
as  the  Talmud  says,1  of  ten  parts  of  lust  nine  were 
given  to  Alexandria — and  with  every  variety  of  de- 
nunciation he  returns  again  and  again  to  the  charge. 
Epicureanism  is  detestable  not  only  for  its  low  idea  of 

1  Midrash  Esther  I. 


94      PHILO-JUDJEUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

human  life,  but  for  its  godless  conception  of  the  uni- 
verse. Its  theory  that  the  world  was  a  fortuitous  con- 
course of  atoms,  which  was  governed  by  blind  chance, 
and  that  the  gods  lived  apart  in  complete  indifference 
to  men — this  was  to  Philo  utter  atheism,  and  as  such 
the  greatest  of  sins.  He  attacked  paganism  not  only 
in  its  crude  form  of  idolatry,1  but  in  its  more  seduc- 
tive disguise  of  a  pretentious  philosophy.  Always  and 
entirely  he  was  the  champion  of  monotheism. 

Nearly  as  godless,  and  therefore  as  vile  in  his  eyes 
as  the  follower  of  Epicurus,  is  the  follower  of  the 
Stoic  doctrines.  It  has  been  shown  that  the  Jews  and 
the  Stoics  were  continually  in  conflict  at  Alexandria ; 
and  the  "  Allegories  of  the  Laws  "  are  rilled  with  at- 
tacks, overt  and  hidden,  upon  the  Stoic  doctrines. 
The  Stoics,  indeed,  believed  in  one  supreme  Divine 
Power,  not  however  in  a  transcendental  and  personal 
God,  but  a  cosmic,  impersonal,  fatalistic  world-force.2 
To  Philo  this  conception,  with  its  denial  of  the  Divine 
will  and  the  Divine  care  for  the  individual,  was  as 
atheistic  as  the  Epicurean  "chance."  Equally  re- 
pulsive to  his  religious  standpoint  was  the  Stoic 
dogma,  that  man  is,  or  should  be,  independent  of  all 
help,  and  that  the  human  reason  is  all-powerful  and 
can  comprehend  the  universe  by  its  own  unaided 
power.8  Eepulsive  also  were  their  pride,  their  rejec- 
tion of  the  emotions,  their  hard  rationalism.  The 

1  Comp.  De  Sac.  II.  245. 

2  Comp.  De  Migr.  32. 

8  Comp.  De  Post  C,  11. 


PHILO'S  WOKKS  AND  METHOD         95 

battle  of  Philo  against  the  Stoics  is  the  battle  of 
personal  monotheism  against  impersonal  pantheism, 
of  religious  faith  and  revelation  against  arrogant  ra- 
tionalism, and  of  idealism  against  materialism.  Hos- 
tile as  he  is  to  the  Stoic  intellectual  dogmatism,  Philo 
is  none  the  less  opposed  to  its  converse,  intellectual 
skepticism  and  agnosticism.  Man,  he  is  convinced, 
has  a  Divine  revelation 1  which  he  may  not  deny  with- 
out ruin.  He  holds  with  Pope  that  we  have 

"  Too  much  of  knowledge  for  the  Skeptic  side, 
Too  much  of  weakness  for  the  Stoic's  pride," 

and  he  attacks  the  Skeptics  of  the  day  who  devoted 
their  minds  to  destructive  dialectical  quibbling  and 
sophistry  *  instead  of  seeking  for  God  and  the  human 
good.  They  are  the  Ishmaels  of  philosophy. 

Philo's  polemic  is  directed  less  against  the  Greek 
schools  in  themselves  than  against  the  Jewish  follow- 
ers of  the  Greek  schools.  He  saw  the  danger  to 
Judaism  in  the  teachings  of  these  anti-religious  phil- 
osophers, and  deeply  as  he  loved  Greek  culture,  he 
loved  more  deeply  his  religion.  He  wanted  to  reveal 
a  philosophy  in  the  Bible  which  should  win  back  to 
Judaism  the  men  who  had  been  captivated  by  foreign 
thought.  In  one  aspect,  therefore,  his  master-work  is 
a  plea  for  unity.  The  community  at  Alexandria  was 
a  very  heterogeneous  body;  not  only  were  the  sects 
which  had  appeared  in  Palestine,  the  Sadducees, 

1  Quaestiones  in  Gen.  III.  33. 
1  De  Cong.  10. 


96      PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDKIA 

Samaritans,  Pharisees,  and  Essenes,  represented  there 
too,  but  in  addition  there  were  parties  who  attached 
themselves  to  one  or  other  of  the  Greek  schools,  the 
Pythagoreans,  Skeptics,  and  the  like,  and  lastly  Gnos- 
tic groups,  who  cultivated  an  esoteric  doctrine  of  the 
Godhead,  and  were  lax  in  their  observance  of  the 
law,  which  they  held  to  be  purely  symbolical  and  of 
no  account  in  its  literal  meaning.  The  mental  activ- 
ity which  this  growth  of  sects  exemplified  was  in  some 
respects  a  healthy  sign,  but  it  contained  seeds  of 
religious  chaos,  which  bore  their  fruit  in  the  next 
century.  Men  started  by  thinking  out  a  philosophical 
Judaism  for  themselves;  they  ended  by  ceasing  to 
be  Jews  and  philosophers.  Philo  foresaw  this  danger, 
and  he  tried  to  combat  it  by  presenting  his  people  with 
a  commentary  of  the  Bible  which  should  satisfy  their 
intellectual  and  speculative  bent,  but  at  the  same 
time  preserve  their  loyalty  to  the  Bible  and  the  law. 
To  the  Greek  world  he  offered  a  philosophical  reli- 
gion, to  his  own  people  a  religious  philosophy.  Thus 
the  allegorical  commentary  is  the  crowning  point  of 
his  work,  the  offering  of  his  deepest  thought  to  the 
most  cultured  of  the  community;  and  though  much 
of  its  detail  had  only  relevancy  for  its  own  time, 
and  its  method  may  repel  our  modern  taste,  yet  the 
spirit  which  animates  it  is  of  value  to  all  ages,  and 
should  be  an  inspiration  to  every  generation  of  eman- 
cipated Jews.  That  spirit  is  one  of  fearless  acceptance 
of  the  finest  culture  of  the  age  combined  with  un- 
swerving love  of  the  law  and  loyalty  to  catholic 
Judaism. 


97 


We  have  already  treated  of  the  general  characteris- 
tics of  Philo's  method  of  allegorical  interpretation, 
but  we  must  now  consider  rather  more  closely  the 
way  in  which  he  employs  it.  The  general  principle 
upon  which  he  depends  is,  that  besides  and  in  addi- 
tion to  the  literal  meaning  which  the  Bible  bears  for 
the  common  man,  it  has  a  hidden  and  deeper  meaning 
for  the  philosopher.  It  is,  as  it  were,  a  sort  of  palimp- 
sest ;  the  writing  on  the  top  all  may  read,  the  writing 
below  the  student  alone  can  decipher.  With  the 
rabbis  Philo  holds  that  the  Torah  was  written  "in 
the  language  of  the  sons  of  man,"1  but  he  believes 
with  them  again  that  it  contains  all  wisdom.  And 
if  the  ideas  of  reason  do  not  appear  in  its  literal 
meaning,  then  they  must  be  searched  out  in  some 
inner  interpretation.  Commenting  on  the  verse  in 
Genesis  (xi.  7),  "Let  us  confound  their  language, 
that  they  may  not  understand  one  another's  speech," 
he  says :  "  Those  who  follow  the  literal  and  obvious 
interpretation  think  that  the  origin  of  the  Greek  and 
barbarian  languages  is  here  described;  [the  contrast 
between  Greek,  on  the  one  hand,  and  barbarian — in 
which  Hebrew,  it  seems,  is  included — on  the  other,  is 
remarkable].  I  would  not  find  fault  with  them,  be- 
cause they  also,  perhaps,  employ  right  reason,  but  I 
would  call  on  them  not  to  remain  content  with  this, 
but  to  follow  me  to  the  metaphorical  renderings,  con- 
sidering that  the  actual  words  of  the  holy  oracle  are, 

1  Comp.  Berakot  51b,  De  Agric.  12,  De  8omn.  II.  25. 

7 

- 


98      PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDEIA 

as  it  were,  shadows  of  the  real  bodies,  and  the  powers 
which  they  reflect  are  the  true  underlying  ideas." ' 

Elsewhere  he  tells  a  story  of  the  condign  punish- 
ment which  befell  a  godless  and  impious  man,  per- 
chance a  Samaritan  Jew,  who  made  mock  of  the  race 
of  allegorical  interpreters,  jeering  at  the  idea  that 
the  change  of  names  from  Abram  to  Abraham  and 
from  Sarai  to  Sarah  contained  some  deep  meaning. 
He  soon  paid  a  fitting  penalty  for  his  wicked  wit,  for 
on  some  very  trivial  pretext  he  went  and  hanged  him- 
self. Which  was  just,  says  Philo;  for  such  a  rascal 
deserved  a  rascal's  death.2  It  is  noteworthy  that  the 
Talmud  also  lays  stress  upon  the  deep  meaning  of 
the  patriarch's  change  of  name.*  "  He  who  calls 
Abraham  Abram,"  said  Bar  Kappara,  "  transgresses 
a  positive  command "  (r\wy  nitfo) .  "  Nay,"  said 
Eabbi  Levi,  "he  transgresses  both  a  positive  and  a 
negative  command  (and  commits  a  double  sin)." 
Clearly  this  was  a  test-question  and  an  article  of 
faith,  possibly  because  the  letter  n,  which  was  added 
to  the  name,  was  a  letter  of  mystical  import  in  the 
opinion  of  the  age.  Both  the  rejection  of  the  literal 
and  the  rejection  of  the  allegorical  value  of  the  Bible, 
Philo  regarded  as  impious,  and  he  had  to  struggle 
against  opposite  factions  that  were  one-sided.  The 
true  son  of  the  law  believes  in  both  rd  fyTov  and 
rd  tv  (3^ovo{'atc.4  Seeing  that  the  Bible  was  the  in- 

lDe  Confus.  38. 

a  De  Mut.  Nom.  8. 

*  Comp.  Bereshit  Rabba  64. 

'De  Somn.  I.  16  and  17. 


PHILO'S  WOEKS  AND  METHOD         99 

spired  revelation  of  God,  who  is  the  fountain  of  all 
wisdom  and  knowledge — this  is  Philo's  cardinal 
dogma — it  is  not  to  be  supposed,  on  the  one  hand,  that 
it  was  silent  about  the  profoundest  ideas  of  the  human 
mind,  or,  on  the  other,  that  it  contained  ideas  op- 
posed to  right  reason  and  truth.  Yet  at  first  sight  it 
seemed  to  lack  any  definite  philosophy  and  to  offer 
anthropomorphic  views  of  God.  Hence  the  true  in- 
terpreter must  use  the  actual  words  of  the  sage  as 
metaphors,  following  the  maxim,  "  Turn  it  about  and 
about,  because  all  is  in  it,  and  contemplate  it  and  wax 
grey  over  it,  for  thou  canst  have  no  better  rule  than 
this."1  The  principle  upon  which  Philo,  Saadia, 
Maimonides,  and  in  fact  the  whole  line  of  Jewish 
philosophical  exegetes  have  worked,  is  that  the  "words 
of  the  law  are  fruitful  and  multiply";  or,  as  the 
Bible  phrase  runs,  "The  Torah  which  Moses  com- 
manded unto  us  is  the  inheritance  of  the  congregation 
of  Jacob."  It  is  the  separate  inheritance  of  each 
generation,  which  each  must  cultivate  so  as  to  gather 
therefrom  its  own  fruit. 

The  Halakah  is  the  outcome  of  this  devotion  in  one 
aspect,  the  philosophical  exegesis  in  another.  In  the 
one  case  Jewish  jurisprudence  and  the  body  of  legal 
tradition,  in  the  other,  philosophical  ideas  inspired  by 
outer  civilization,  are  attached  to  the  text  of  the  Bible 
by  ingenious  devices  of  association.  The  device  is 
partly  a  pious  fiction,  partly  a  genuine  belief ;  in  other 

1  Comp.  "  Ethics  of  the  Fathers  "  V.  25. 


100    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

words,  the  teachers  honestly  thought  that  there  was  re- 
spectively a  hidden  philosophical  meaning  in  the  Bible 
and  an  oral  tradition,  supplementary  to  the  written 
law  and  arising  out  of  it ;  but  on  the  other  hand  they 
would  not  have  urged  that  their  particular  interpre- 
tation alone  was  portended  by  the  Scriptures.  This 
is  shown  in  the  Talmud  by  the  fact  that  different 
rabbis  deduced  the  same  lessons  from  different  verses, 
and  contrary  laws  from  the  same  verse;  in  Philo  by 
the  fact  that  he  often  gives  various  interpretations  of 
one  text  in  different  parts  of  his  work.  All  that  was 
claimed  was  that  knowledge  and  truth  must  be  pri- 
marily referred  to  the  Divine  revelation,  and  all  law 
and  practice  to  the  authority  of  the  Mosaic  code. 
Philo,  then,  in  the  same  way  as  the  rabbis,  deduces 
all  his  teaching  from  the  Bible,  not  because  he  holds 
that  it  was  explicitly  contained  there,  but  because  he 
desires  to  give  to  his  philosophical  notions  Divine 
authority.  Like  the  rabbis,  again,  he  suggests  defi- 
nite rules  of  interpretation  which  may  always  be  ap- 
plied (xdvovs*;  T^>  dMyyopias)  .x  He  declares  that  every 
name  in  the  Torah  has  a  deep  symbolical  meaning, 
and  symbolizes  some  power.2  Thus  the  names  of 
the  sons  of  Jacob  typify  each  some  moral  quality, 
and  these  qualities  together  make  the  perfect  man 
and  the  perfect  nation.  Reuben  is  "the  son  of  in- 
sight" (p~uo),  Simeon  is  learning  (p-jjDff),  Judah 

1Comp.  De  Somn.  I.  13. 
*  De  Mut.  Nom.  9. 


PHILO'S  WORKS  AND  METHOD       101 

(mm')  stands  for  the  praise  of  God.1  It  may  be 
noted,  by  the  way,  that  all  these  values  show  traces  of 
Hebrew  etymology.  Again,  the  synonyms  in  the 
Bible  are  to  be  carefully  studied,  while  even  particles 
and  parts  of  words  have  their  special  value  and  im- 
portance. And  the  skilful  exegete  may  for  homiletical 
purposes  make  slight  changes  in  a  word,  following 
the  rabbinical  rule/  "Read  not  so,  but  so/'  Thus 
he  plays  upon  the  name  Esau,  and  takes  the  Hebrew 
word  as  though  it  were  written,  not  ifr#,  but  ^,  a 
thing  made.3  Whence  he  shows  that  Esau  represents 
the  sham  (made-up)  greatness,  which  is  boastful 
and  insolent  and  shameless.  Philo  is  referring  per- 
haps to  Apion,  the  vainglorious  anti-Semite,  whom 
he  often  covertly  attacks.  Again,  whenever  there 
is  repetition  in  the  text,  a  deeper  meaning  is  por- 
tended. Dealing  with  the  verse,  "  Sarah  the  wife 
of  Abraham  took  Hagar  the  Egyptian"  (Gten.  xvi.  3), 
Philo  comments,  that  we  already  knew  that  Sarah 
was  Abraham's  wife :  why,  then,  does  the  Bible  men- 
tion it  again?  And  following  certain  values  which 
he  has  made,  he  draws  the  lesson  that  the  study  of 
philosophy  must  always  go  together  with  the  study 
of  general  culture.4  These  examples  are  not  isolated ; 
yet  it  is  rather  a  barren  science  to  search  for  the 
canons  of  Philo's  allegory,  as  Siegfried  has  done. 

1  De  Somn.  I.  5. 

2  Berakot  10«. 
1  De  Cong.  12. 
*  De  Cong.  14. 


102    PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

For  his  allegory  is  a  very  flexible  instrument,  which 
can  be  employed  at  pleasure  to  deduce  anything  from, 
anything.  And  Philo  regards  these  "points  of  con- 
struction" as  the  excuse,  not  as  the  motive,  of  his 
ethical  and  philosophical  teaching.  He  does  not  de- 
pend on  such  devices,  for  he  wanders  into  allegory 
more  often  than  not  without  any  pretext  of  the  kind. 
The  modern  reader  may  consider  the  allegorical 
method  artificial  and  unconvincing,  even  if  he  does 
not  go  so  far  as  Spinoza,  and  say  that  it  is  "useless, 
harmful,  and  absurd."1  We  prefer  to-day  to  show 
the  inner  agreement  of  philosophical  with  Biblical 
teaching,  rather  than  pretend  that  all  philosophy  is 
contained  within  the  Bible;  and  we  accept  the  Bible 
as  it  stands,  as  a  book  of  supreme  religious  worth, 
without  requiring  more  of  it.  But  that  is  mainly  a 
difference  of  taste  or  of  method,  and  in  Philo's  day, 
and  in  fact  down  to  the  time  of  the  sixteenth-century 
Renaissance,  Jew  and  Gentile  alike  preferred  the 
other  way.  For  thought,  ancient  and  mediaeval,  was 
pervaded  with  the  craving  for  authority  or  a  plausible 
show  of  it.  The  Bible  was  not  only  the  great  book  of 
morality,  but  the  standard  of  truth,  that  from  which 
knowledge  in  all  its  branches  started,  and  that  by 
which  it  was  to  be  judged.  As  all  knowledge  came 
from  God,  so  all  knowledge  was  in  God's  Book;  and 
allegory  was  the  method  by  which  the  intellectual 
conceptions  of  succeeding  ^ges  were  attached  to  it. 

^'Theologico-Political  Tractate"  VII. 


PHILO'S  WORKS  AXD  METHOD       103 

The  two  main  heads  of  Biblical  interpretation 
which  the  Jewish  religious  genius  developed,  Peshat 
and  Derash, — these  represent  two  permanent  attitudes 
of  mind.  In  the  first  the  commentator  tries  to  get  at 
the  exact  meaning  of  the  text  before  him,  to  make  its 
lesson  clear  and  discuss  the  circumstances  of  the  com- 
position, the  exact  relations  of  its  parts.  He  is  satis- 
fied to  take  the  writer  of  the  Biblical  book  for  what  he 
says  in  his  own  form  of  utterance.  In  the  second  the 
commentator  is  more  anxious  to  inculcate  ideas  and 
lessons  which  do  not  arise  obviously  from  the  text, 
and  to  widen  the  significance  of  what  he  finds  in  the 
Bible.  The  interpretation  ceases  to  be  a  mere  exposi- 
tion ;  it  becomes  creative  or  conciliating  thought,  and 
the  interpreter  becomes  a  religious  reformer,  a  phil- 
osopher, a  prophet.  To  this  school  Philo  belongs,  and 
the  framework  of  his  teaching  or  the  ingenuity  by 
which  he  develops  it  from  his  text  is  of  small  account. 
It  is  what  he  teaches  and  what  he  considers  to  be  the 
vital  things  in  religion  and  life  to  which  we  must  pay 
attention.  Judged  on  this  ground  Philo  is  a  supreme 
master  of  Derash,  and  must  take  a  place  among  the 
most  creative  of  the  interpreters  of  the  Bible. 


IV 
PHILO  AND  THE  TOEAH 

Over  and  over  again  Philo  declares  that  his  func- 
tion is  to  expound  the  law  of  Moses.  Moses  was  the 
interpreter  of  God's  word  to  Israel ;  and  Philo  aspired 
to  be  the  interpreter  of  the  revelation  of  Moses  to 
the  Hellenistic  world,  "the  living  voice  of  the  holy 
law."  He  believed  that  Israel  was  a  chosen  people 
in  the  sense  that  it  had  received  the  Divine  message 
on  behalf  of  the  whole  human  race,1  a  Kingdom  of 
Priests,  in  that  it  occupied  to  other  nations  the  po- 
sition which  the  priest — using  the  word  in  the  fullest 
sense — occupied  to  the  common  people.2  The  Torah 
is  God's  covenant,  not  only  with  one  small  nation,  but 
with  all  His  children,  and  its  teachings  are  true  for 
all  times  and  for  all  places.  "The  Bible,"  as  Pro- 
fessor Butcher  says/  "  is  the  one  book  which  appears 
to  have  the  capacity  of  eternal  self-adjustment,  of 
uninterrupted  correspondence  with  an  ever-shifting 
and  ever-widening  environment."  Nowadays  this 
appears  a  truism,  but  the  truth  first  presented  itself 
to  the  Jewish-Alexandrian  community  when  they 
came  in  contact  with  external  culture.  The  Pales- 
tinian and  Babylonian  Jews,  free  for  the  most  part 
from  outside  influences,  developed  the  Torah  for  the 
Jewish  people,  amplified  the  tradition,  and  determined 

1  De  Abr.  19. 

1  De  Mon.  II.  6. 

1  Harvard  Studies,  "  Hellenism  and  Hebraism." 


PHILO  AND  THE  TOKAH  105 

the  Halakah,  the  practical  law.  But  the  Alexandrian 
Jews  in  the  first  place  found  their  own  attitude  to  the 
Torah  affected  by  their  acquaintance  with  Greek 
ethics  and  metaphysics,  and  also  found  it  necessary 
to  interpret  the  Bible  in  a  new  fashion  in  order  to 
make  its  value  known  to  their  environment.  The 
Greek  world  required  to  be  shown  the  general  princi- 
ple, the  broad  ethical  idea  in  each  ordinance.  And 
thus  it  came  about  that  the  Alexandrian  interpreters 
always  emphasized  the  universal  beneath  the  particu- 
lar, the  moral  spirit  beneath  the  forms. 

It  had  been  one  of  the  chief  functions  of  the 
prophets  to  demonstrate  the  moral  import  of  the  law. 
In  their  vision  the  God  of  Israel  became  the  God  of 
the  universe,  and  His  law  of  conduct  was  spread  over 
all  mankind.  "  For  the  law  shall  go  forth  from  Zion, 
and  the  word  of  the  Lord  from  Jerusalem  "  (Micah  iv. 
2).  Philo  in  effect  expounds  Judaism  in  their  spirit, 
though  he  speaks  their  message  in  the  voice  of  Plato 
and  to  a  people  whose  minds  were  trained  in  Greek 
culture.  Yet  it  is  significant  that  he  wrote  all  his 
commentaries  round  the  Five  Books  of  Moses,  and 
used  the  prophets  and  other  Biblical  books  only  to 
illustrate  and  support  the  Mosaic  teaching,  which, 
contains  the  whole  way  of  life  and  the  whole  religious 
philosophy.  According  to  the  rabbis  also  the  Proph- 
ets formed  only  a  complement  to  the  Torah,  "a 
species  of  Agadah " ;  *  and  the  prophetic  vision  of 

1  Comp.  Schechter,  "  Aspects  of  Rabbinic  Theology," 
p.  119. 


106    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

Moses  was  much  clearer  than  that  of  his  successors. 
Philo,  too,  clearly  realized  that  Judaism  was  the  re- 
ligion of  the  law.  His  view  of  the  Torah  is  what  the 
modern  world  would  call  uncritical :  that  is  to  say,  he 
accepts  the  idea  that  the  whole  of  the  Five  Books  was 
an  objective  revelation  to  Moses  at  Sinai.  But  though 
— or  because — he  is  innocent  of  the  higher  criticism, 
and  believes  in  the  literal  inspiration  of  the  Torah,  his 
conception  is  none  the  less  enlightened  and  spiritual. 
The  law — the  Divine  Logos — is  not  the  enactment  of 
an  outside  power,  arbitrarily  imposed,  and  to  be  obeyed 
because  of  its  miraculous  origin ;  it  is  the  expres- 
sion of  the  human  soul  within,  when  raised  to  its 
highest  power  by  the  Divine  inspiration.  Every  man 
may  fit  himself  to  receive  the  Divine  word,  which 
is,  in  modern  language,  revelation.1  Moses,  then,  is 
distinguished  above  all  other  legislators,  not  because 
he  alone  received  it,  but  because  he  received  it  in  its 
purest  form,  and  because  he  was  the  most  noble  inter- 
preter of  it.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  law  of 
Moses  is  of  universal  validity  for  conduct.  The  Di- 
vine spirit  possessed  him  so  fully  that  his  Logos,  or 
revelation,  is  eternally  true,  and  by  following  it  all 
men  become  fit  to  be  blessed  with  the  Divine  gift 
themselves.  This  is  true  of  the  other  prophets  of  the 
Bible  to  a  smaller  degree,  and  in  a  still  minor  degree 
Philo  hoped  that  it  was  true  of  himself. 

It  should  be  premised  that  the  "law  of  nature" 

1  Comp.  De  V.  Mos.  II.  9  and  10,  III.  1. 


PHILO  AND  THE  TORAH  107 

was  at  the  time  of  Philo  an  idea  as  widely  accepted  as 
"  evolution  "  is  to-day.  Men  believed  that  by  a  study 
of  the  processes  of  the  universe  the  individual  might 
discover  the  law  of  conduct  that  should  bring  his 
action  into  harmony  with  the  whole.  What  the  Greek 
philosophers  declared  to  be  the  privilege  of  the  few, 
Philo  declared  to  have  been  imparted  by  God  to  His 
people  as  their  law  of  life.  Hence  the  Mosaic  legisla- 
tion is  the  code  of  nature  and  reason,  and  the  right- 
eous man  directs  his  conduct  in  accordance  with  those 
rules  of  nature  by  which  the  cosmos  is  ordered.1 
Obedience  to  the  law  should  not  be  obedience  to  an 
outward  prescription,  but  rather  the  following  out 
of  our  own  highest  nature.  The  ideal  which  the 
Stoic  sage  continually  aspired  for  and  never  attained 
to — the  life  according  to  nature  and  right  reason — 
this  Philo  claimed  had  been  accomplished  in  the  Mo- 
saic revelation,  handed  down  by  God  to  Israel  and 
through  them  to  the  world. 

Before  we  deal  with  Philo's  treatment  of  the  law 
in  its  narrower  sense,  it  will  be  as  well  to  consider 
briefly  his  interpretation  of  the  historical  parts  of 
the  Torah.  Here  likewise  he  finds  ideas  of  natural 
reason  and  eternal  truths  embodied.  To  Philo,  as 
we  have  seen,  the  Torah  is  a  unity,  and  every  part  of 
it  has  equal  validity  and  value.  He  had  to  contend 
against  certain  higher  critics  of  his  day,  who  declared 
that  Genesis  was  a  collection  of  myths 

1 L.  A.  i.  2. 


108  PHILO-JUD;EUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 


Moreover,  the  long  catalogues  of  gene- 
alogies in  Genesis  and  the  longer  recitals  of  sacrifices 
in  Leviticus  and  Numbers  seemed  to  refute  those 
who  declared  that  every  part  of  the  Pentateuch  was 
a  Divine  revelation.  In  the  third  book  of  the  "  Ques- 
tions to  Genesis  "  Philo  directly  grapples  with  this  ob- 
jection. Commenting  on  the  verse  (Gen.  xv.  9), 
"  Take  for  me  a  heifer  of  three  years  old  and  a  goat  of 
three  years  old/'  etc.,  he  says  that  in  interpreting  any 
part  or  any  verse  of  Scripture  we  must  look  to  the 
purpose  of  the  whole  and  explain  it  from  this  outlook, 
"  without  dissecting  or  disturbing  its  harmony  or  dis- 
integrating its  unity."  a  Why  should  God,  asked  the 
scoffer,  reveal  these  trivial  or  prolix  details?  Philo's 
answer  is  in  fact  to  spiritualize  everything  that  is 
material,  and  universalize  everything  that  is  par- 
ticular. While  he  believes  in  the  literal  inspiration  of 
the  Bible,  he  does  not  insist  upon  the  literal  truth  of 
every  word  of  it,  and  in  the  opening  chapters  of  Gene- 
sis in  particular,  he  treats  the  tales  as  symbolical  or 
allegorical  myths.  His  philosophical  commentary  on 
the  creation,  corresponding  to  the  rvwu  r\wyn  of 
the  rabbis,  is  found  in  the  book  De  Mundi  Opificio, 
which  stands  in  modern  editions  at  the  head  of  his 
writings.  Its  main  theme  is  to  trace  in  the  text 
the  Platonic  idealism,  i.  e.,  the  theory  that  God  first 
created  transcendental,  incorporeal  archetypes  of  all 

1  Comp.  De  Mundi  Op,  2. 
'Comp.  p.  85,  above. 


PHILO  AND  THE  TORAH  109 

physical  and  material  things.  Philo  uses  the  double 
account  of  the  creation  of  man  in  the  first  and  second 
chapters  of  Genesis  as  clear  evidence  that  the  Bible 
describes — for  those  who  have  the  mind  to  see — the 
creation  of  an  ideal  before  the  terrestrial  man. 

In  the  "  Allegories  of  the  Laws,"  which  is  the  pro- 
founder  philosophical  doctrine,  the  account  of  Adam 
and  Eve  is  deliberately  chosen  by  Philo  as  the  text 
of  a  psychological  treatise,  in  which  he  analyzes x  the 
relations  of  the  mind,  the  senses,  and  the  pleasures, 
represented  respectively  by  Adam,  Eve,  and  the  Ser- 
pent. The  necessity  of  explaining  the  story  symboli- 
cally is  professedly  based  on  the  fact  that  otherwise 
we  are  driven  to  the  idea  that  the  Bible  spoke  inaccu- 
rately about  God.  "  It  is  silly,"  he  says,  "  to  suppose 
that  Adam  and  Eve  can  have  hidden  themselves  in 
the  Garden  of  Eden,  for  God  filled  the  whole."  We 
are  driven  then  to  suggest  another  meaning;  and 
Philo  passes  into  a  homily  about  the  false  opinion  of 
the  man  who  follows  the  bidding  of  the  senses  (Eve) 
at  the  instigation  of  pleasure  (the  Serpent).* 

The  story  of  Cain  and  Abel  is  another  piece  of 
moral  philosophy  embodied  in  a  concrete  form.  Abel 
symbolizes  pious  humility,  Cain  the  deadly  sin  of 
atheism  and  intellectual  pride,  which  denies  the  ab- 
solute and  ever-present  power  of  the  Deity.  Philo 
asks  himself  the  question  that  other  commentators 
have  frequently  raised,  some  in  reverence,  some  in 

1  Comp.  L.  A.  I,  passim. 
3  L.  A.  III.  12. 


110    PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

ridicule,  "  Who  was  Cain's  wife  ?  "  And  he  an- 
swers that  the  Bible  expression  about  the  children  of 
Cain  cannot  be  taken  literally,  but  suggests  the  union 
of  the  ill-ruled  mind  with  impious  opinions,  which 
have  as  their  issue  false  pride  and  sin. 

Philo  here  treats  the  stories  in  the  opening  of  Gen- 
esis as  pure  allegories,  in  which  the  men  and  women 
represent  symbolically  characters  and  qualities.  It 
should  be  remembered,  however,  that  these  interpreta- 
tions occur  in  the  commentary  where  our  author  is 
not  so  much  expounding  the  Torah  as  deducing  secret 
doctrines  from  it.  His  proper  exposition  of  the  law 
proceeds  from  the  book  on  the  Creation  to  the  lives  of 
the  patriarchs  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  and  then 
to  the  lives  of  Joseph  and  Moses.  And  in  this  com- 
mentary the  Bible  narrative  is  taken  as  historical 
truth :  only  in  addition  to  the  historical  fact  there  is 
a  moral  and  universal  value  in  every  figure  and  every 
episode.  The  patriarchs'  lives  represent  the  unwritten 
law  which  the  Greek  world  held  in  high  honor,  for  it 
was  considered  to  contain  the  broad  principles  of  in- 
dividual and  social  conduct,  and  to  be  prior  logically 
and  chronologically  to  the  written  codes.  Moses, 
therefore,  the  perfect  legislator,  according  to  Philo, 
has  presented  in  the  three  founders  of  the  Hebrew 
race  embodiments  of  the  unwritten  law  of  good  con- 
duct for  all  mankind.  Each  of  them  is  a  moral  type  of 
eternal  validity  and  represents  one  of  the  ways  in 

Post.  C.  11. 


PHILO  AND  THE  TOEAH  111 

which  blessedness  may  be  attained.1  Abraham  repre- 
sents the  goodness  which  comes  from  instruction; 
Isaac,  the  spontaneous  goodness  that  is  innate,  and 
the  joy  (or  laughter)  of  the  soul  that  is  God's  gift  to 
his  favored  sons ;  Jacob,  the  goodness  that  comes  after 
long  effort,  through  the  life  of  practice  and  severe  dis- 
cipline. Before  this  triad,  the  Bible  presents  another 
group  of  three,  who  represent  the  virtues  preparatory 
to  the  acquisition  of  perfect  goodness :  Enosh,  Enoch, 
and  Noah.2  They  typify  respectively,  as  their  names 
indicate,  hope,  repentance,  and  justice.  It  is  a  pretty 
thought,  helped  by  an  error  in  the  Septuagint  trans- 
lation,8 which  sees  in  the  name  of  the  first  (i.  e.,  man, 
BHJK)  the  symbol  of  hope.  Hope,  the  commentator 
suggests,  is  the  distinguishing  characteristic  of  man  * 
as  compared  with  other  animals,  and  hope  therefore 
is  our  first  step  towards  the  Divine  nature,  the  seed 
of  which  faith  is  the  fruit.  Next  in  order  come  re- 
pentance and  natural  justice,  and  from  these  step- 
ping-stones we  can  rise  to  the  higher  self.  Philo's 
interpretation  of  these  Bible  figures  would  appear  to 
have  behind  it  an  old  Midrashic  tradition.  As  far 
back  as  the  book  of  Ben  Sira,  in  the  passage  on  "  the 
Praises  of  Famous  Men"  (xliv),  they  are  taken 
as  typical  of  the  different  virtues,  and  Enoch  notably 

1  De  Abr.  3  ff.  » Ibid.  6-10. 

8  The  LXX  renders  the  verse  Gen.  iv.  26,  which  Is  trans- 
lated in  the  Authorized  Version:  "Then  began  men  to 
call  upon  the  name  of  the  Lord,"  ovroc  faniaev  CTTI  -rbv  TUV 
bfov  irarepa;  i.  e.,  "He  hoped  in  the  Father  of  all." 

4  Quod  Det.  38. 


112    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

is  the  type  of  repentance.  In  the  first  century  the 
world  was  becoming  incapable  of  understanding  ab- 
stract ideas,  and  required  ethics  to  be  concretely  em- 
bodied in  examples  of  life.  Philo  found  within  the 
Jewish  Scriptures  what  the  Christian  apostles  later 
transferred  to  other  events. 

Joseph,  whose  life  followed  that  of  the  patriarchs, 
is  the  type  of  the  political  life,  the  model  of  the  man 
of  action  and  ambition.  Taken  alone,  this  is  inferior 
to  the  life  of  the  saint  and  philosopher,  but  mixed 
with  the  other  it  produces  the  perfect  man,  for  the 
truly  good  man  must  take  his  part  in  public  life.  The 
story  of  Joseph,  then,  illustrates  the  full  humanity  of 
Moses*  scheme,  and  it  marks  also,  according  to  Philo, 
the  great  moral  lesson,  that  if  there  be  one  spark  of 
nobility  in  a  man's  soul,  God  will  find  it  and  cause  it 
to  shine  forth.1  For  Joseph,  until  he  comes  down  to 
Egypt,  is  not  a  virtuous  man,  but  full  of  conceit  and 
unworthy  aspiration  for  supremacy ;  he  shows  his  true 
worth  when  he  is  sold  into  slavery;  and  then  by  the 
Divine  inspiration  he  becomes  the  ideal  statesman. 
Very  suggestive  is  Philo's  homily,  by  which  he  devel- 
ops the  Bible  narrative,  that  the  function  of  the  states- 
man is  to  expound  dreams;8  because  his  task  is  to 
interpret  the  life  of  man,  which  is  one  long  dream  of 
changing  scenes,  wherein  we  forget  what  has  gone 
before,  as  the  fleeting  shadow  leads  us  from  childhood 
to  youth,  from  youth  to  manhood,  from  manhood  to 

1  De  Jos.  21. 
*De  Jos.  22. 


PHILO  AND  THE  TOKAH  113 

old  age.  Lastly,  from  the  story  of  Joseph  he  draws 
the  lesson  that  when  the  Hebrew  has  attained  to  a 
high  position  in  a  foreign  land,  as  in  Egypt,  where 
there  is  utter  blindness  about  the  true  God,  he  can 
and  should  retain  his  national  laws,1  and  not  assim- 
ilate the  practices  of  his  environment. 

Eusebius2  mentions,  among  the  works  of  Philo 
which  he  had  before  him,  a  book  on  "  The  Statesman," 
in  which  doubtless  the  principles  of  government  and 
social  life  were  more  fully  treated.  The  book  has 
disappeared,  but  the  life  of  Joseph  suffices  to  show 
that  Philo  recognized  the  place  of  public  service  in 
the  human  ideal. 

Moses  is  not  only  the  divinely  inspired  legislator, 
but  he  typifies  also  the  perfection  of  the  human  soul, 
the  highest  example  of  the  man  at  one  with  God,  su- 
preme as  king,  lawgiver,  priest,  and  prophet.  He  is 
the  link  between  God  and  man,  the  perfect  interpreter 
of  the  Divine  Word ;  and  though  Philo  avoids  the  sug- 
gestion of  any  Divine  power  incarnate  in  man,  he 
speaks  imaginatively  of  the  Logos  of  Moses,3  i.  e.,  his 
reason,  as  identical  with  the  Logos  of  God,  the  Divine 
law  of  the  universe.  It  is  significant  of  his  attitude  to 
religion  that  he  lays  no  stress  upon  the  miracles  of  the 
Bible  narrative.  Not  that  he  rationalizes  them  away; 
he  rejects  all  rationalizing  whatsoever;  but  he  inter- 

1  De  Jos.  42. 

'Hist.  Ecclesiast.  II.  18,  L 

»De7.  Mos.  III.  4  ff. 

8 


114    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXAKDKIA 

prets  them  as  great  spiritual  signs,  rather  than  as  di- 
versions from  the  laws  of  nature.  His  allegory  of 
the  burning  bush  which  Moses  saw  at  Horeb  is  typical, 
and  presents  a  truth  to  which  the  whole  history  of 
Israel  bears  witness.  The  weak  thorn-bush,  which 
was  not  consumed  by  the  fire,  is  the  image  of  the  idea 
of  Israel,  which  almost  cries  to  the  people  in  their 
misfortune :  "  Do  not  despair !  Your  weakness  is 
your  strength,  and  by  it  you  shall  wound  race  after 
race.  You  will  be  preserved  by  those  who  wish  to 
destroy  you,  and  you  shall  not  perish.  In  evil  days 
you  shall  not  suffer,  and  when  a  tyrant  thinks  to  up- 
root you,  you  shall  shine  forth  the  more  in  brighter 
glory." '  The  passage  is  t3^pical  also  of  the  rhetorical 
artifice  with  which  Philo,  following  the  taste  of  the 
time,  recommended  the  Bible  to  the  Greeks. 

We  turn  now  to  Philo's  treatment  of  the  Mosaic 
legislation,  the  Torah  in  its  narrower  sense,  which  is 
to  modern  Jewry  perhaps  the  most  striking  part  of  his 
commentary.  His  problem  was  the  same  as  ours — to 
bring  the  ancient  law  into  harmony  with  the  ideas  of 
a  non-Jewish  environment,  and  to  show  its  essential 
value  when  tried  by  an  external  cultural  standard. 
Briefly  his  solution  is  that  he  sees  everything  in  the 
Torah  sub  specie  ceternitatis,  in  the  light  of  eternity ; 
and  by  his  faithfulness  to  the  law,  combined  with  his 
spiritual  interpretation  of  it,  he  stands  forth  as  the 
greatest  Jewish  missionary  of  his  age.  Unfortunately 
for  Judaism,  depth  of  thought  and  philosophical  judg- 

1De  Y.  Mos.  II.  3. 


PHILO  AND  THE  TORAH  115 

ment  are  not  the  qualities  which  mark  the  successful 
religious  missionary.  Philo's  philosophical  treatment 
of  the  Torah  was  understood  only  of  the  few;  the 
fanatical  Pauline  rejection  of  the  law  appealed  to 
the  masses.  The  spirit  of  the  age  demanded,  in- 
deed, the  ethical  interpretation  of  the  Bible,  and  it 
was  carried  out  in  many  ways,  some  true,  some  un- 
true to  Judaism.  Philo  and  Josephus  tell  us  how 
Judaism  was  spreading  over  the  world.1  "  There  is 
not  any  city  of  the  Greeks,"  says  the  historian,  "  nor 
of  the  barbarians,  nor  of  any  nation  whatsoever,  to 
which  our  custom  of  resting  on  the  seventh  day  has 
not  been  introduced,  and  where  our  fasts  and  our 
dietary  laws  are  not  observed As  God  Him- 
self pervadeth  all  the  universe,  so  hath  our  law  passed 
through  the  world/'  And  their  testimony  is  sup- 
ported by  the  frequent  gibes  against  Judaizing  Ro- 
mans in  the  Roman  poets,2  and  by  the  explicit  state- 
ments of  Strabo,*  the  famous  geographer,  and,  more 
remarkable  still,  of  Seneca,  the  Stoic  philosopher- 
statesman.  The  bitter  foe  of  the  Jews,  he  confessed  that 
this  superstitious  pest  was  infecting  the  whole  world, 
and  that  the  conquered  people  (Judasa  had  lately 
been  made  a  Roman  province)  were  taking  their 
conquerors  captive.4  Philo,  with  his  ardent  hope, 
looked  for  the  near  coming  of  the  time  when  the 
worship  of  the  Jewish  God  would  prevail  over  the 

1  De  V.  Mos.  II.  5,  Josephus,  C.  Apion.  II.  37. 
*Comp.  Horace,  Satires  I.  4,  138;  I.  9,  60. 
•  Frag,  preserved  in  Josephus,  Ant.  XIV.  7. 
*Comp.  Reinach,  op.  cit.,  p.  262. 


116    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDKIA 

world,  and  sought  to  show  that  the  Jewish  law,  which 
is  the  expression  of  Jewish  belief,  and  which  differs 
from  all  others,  not  only  in  the  extent  of  its  sway,  but 
in  its  unchangeableness,  could  be  universalized  to  fit 
its  new  service.  To  this  end  he  interpreted  the  Mosaic 
code,  which  "no  war,  tyrant,  persecution,  or  visita- 
tion, human  or  Divine,  can  destroy:  for  it  is 
eternal."1  In  the  arrangement  of  the  Torah, 
Philo  finds  a  proof  of  its  universality.  It  begins  with 
the  account  of  the  creation,  to  teach  us  that  the  same 
Being  that  is  the  Creator  and  Father  of  the  universe 
is  also  its  Legislator,  and,  again,  that  he  who  follows 
the  law  will  choose  to  live  in  harmony  with  nature, 
and  will  exhibit  consistency  of  action  with  words  and 
of  words  with  action.  Other  philosophers,  notably  the 
Stoics,  claimed  to  lay  down  a  plan  of  life  that  fol- 
lowed the  law  of  nature ;  but  their  practice  notoriously 
fell  below  their  unrealizable  professions.  In  Judaism 
alone  spirit  and  practice  were  at  one,  so  that  each 
inspired  the  other  and  secured  human  excellence. 
"  Not  theory  but  practice  is  the  root  of  the  matter  " 
(nt?yon  xSx  ipy  tmon  xS),  according  to  the  rabbis:2 
and  Philo,  who,  contemplative  philosopher  as  he  was, 
yet  recognized  the  all-importance  of  conduct,  writes 
in  the  same  spirit : a  "  We  must  first  study  and  then 
act,  for  we  learn,  not  for  learning's  sake,  but  in  order 
to  action/' 

1  De  V.  Mos.  II.  3. 

» "  Ethics  of  the  Fathers  "  I.  17. 

'De  Fuga  6. 


PHILO  AND  THE  TORAH  117 

Philo  seeks  to  arrange  the  law  under  general  moral 
heads,  and  he  finds  in  the  Decalogue  the  holy  text 
upon  which  the  rest  of  the  code  is  but  a  commentary. 
He  may  be  following  a  tradition  common  among  all 
the  Jews,  for  in  the  Midrash  to  Numbers  (xiii)  it 
is  said  that  the  six  hundred  and  thirteen  precepts 
are  all  contained  in  the  Ten  Commandments: 
;m  m^iSo  nixn  nrw.  We  do  not  know,  however, 
in  what  way  the  early  rabbis  carried  out  this  idea, 
whereas  we  possess  Philo's  arrangement;  and  some 
of  its  features  are  very  suggestive.1  To  the  first 
two  commandments  he  attaches  the  ritual  laws  re- 
lating to  priests  and  sacrifices,  to  the  fourth  the  laws 
of  all  the  festivals,  to  the  seventh  the  criminal 
and  civil  law,  to  the  tenth  the  dietary  laws.  The 
Decalogue  he  conceives  as  falling  into  two  divisions, 
between  which  the  fifth  commandment  is  a  link.  For 
the  first  four  commandments  are  ordinances  that  de- 
termine man's  relation  to  God,  and  the  last  five  those 
which  determine  his  relation  to  his  fellows.  Honor 
of  the  parents  is  the  link  between  the  Divine  and  the 
human  virtues,  even  as  parents  themselves  are  a  link 
between  immortal  God  and  mortal  man.  Correspond- 
ing to  the  two  divisions  of  the  Decalogue  are  the 
two  generic  virtues  which  the  Mosaic  legislation  has 
set  as  its  goal,  piety,  and  humanity,  or  what  the  rabbis 
called  charity  (ncn¥).  "  He  who  loves  God,  but  does 
not  show  love  towards  his  own  kind,  has  but  the  half 
of  virtue."51  Thus  in  one  and  the  same  age  Hillel, 

1  De  Decal.  12.  *  De  Decal.  23. 


118    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

incited  by  a  single  scoffer,  and  Philo,  moved  by  the 
taunts  of  a  tribe  of  anti-Semites,  looked  for  the  most 
vital  lesson  of  the  Torah,  and  they  found  it  alike  in 
"the  love  of  our  neighbor/'  That  was  Judaism  on 
its  practical  side. 

In  order  to  show  the  humanitarian  spirit  of  the 
Torah,  Philo  emphasizes  its  socialistic  institutions, 
the  law  of  the  seventh  year's  rest  to  the  land  (r\w 
ntrntyn),  of  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves,  and  of  the 
Jubilee.  These  to  him  are  not  tribal  laws,  but  the 
ideal  institutions  for  the  whole  world,  which  shall 
one  day  be  set  up  when  the  theocracy  has  been  estab- 
lished over  all  mankind.  And  in  an  age  when  slavery 
was  as  accepted  a  condition  as  factory-labor  is  to-day, 
he  ventured  to  assert  the  principle  of  the  equality  of 
man.  "  If,"  saith  the  law,  "  one  of  thy  brethren  be 
sold  to  thee,  let  him  serve  thee  for  six  years,  and  in  the 
seventh  year  let  him  go  free  without  payment."  And 
Philo  thereon  comments :  *  "A  second  time  Moses 
calls  our  fellow-creature  brother,  to  impress  upon  the 
master  that  he  has  a  tie  with  his  servant,  so  that  he 
may  not  neglect  him  as  a  stranger.  Nay,  but  if  he 
follows  the  direction  of  the  law,  he  will  feel  sympathy 
with  him,  and  will  not  be  vexed  when  he  is  about  to 
liberate  him.  For  though  we  call  our  servants  slaves, 
yet  in  verity  they  are  only  dependents  who  serve  us 
in  order  to  have  the  means  of  life."  This  corre- 
sponds with  the  Talmud  dictum,  "  Whoever  buys  a 

1  De  Septen.  9. 


PHILO  AND  THE  TOEAH  119 

Jewish  slave  buys  a  master  for  himself."1  Com- 
menting again  upon  the  verse  in  Exodus  xxi.  6, 
which  says  with  seeming  harshness  that  a  servant  who 
wishes  to  stay  with  his  master  after  the  year  of  eman- 
cipation has  arrived,  shall  be  nailed  by  the  ear  to  a 
door,  he  explains  that  no  man  should  consent  of  his 
own  will  to  be  a  slave,  for  we  should  only  be  servants 
of  God;  and  if  a  man  deliberately  rejects  freedom  for 
comfort,  he  should  wear  a  mark  of  degradation.  The 
so-called  Christian  principle  of  the  dignity  of  human 
life  and  the  equality  of  man,  Philo  shows  to  be  the 
spirit  of  the  Mosaic  law,  not  limited  within  the  con- 
fines of  one  nation,  but  valid  for  the  world.  Nor  is  it 
contained  therein  as  a  mere  sentimental  aspiration, 
but  it  is  realized  in  the  institutions  of  the  Jewish 
polity. 

Philo  looked  for  the  same  broad  principles  in  his 
treatment  of  the  ceremonial  law.  The  Sabbath  day 
is  the  central  observance,  one  might  say,  the  lodestar 
of  the  Jewish  life,  round  which,  the  other  ceremonies 
revolve.  The  Sabbath  is  the  call  to  man's  higher 
nature,  for  it  is  the  day  on  which  we  are  bidden  to 
devote  ourselves  to  the  Divine  power  within  us  and 
to  seek  to  know  God.  "  The  six  days  in  which  the 
Creator  made  the  universe  are  an  example  to  us  to 
work,  but  the  seventh  day,  on  which  He  rested,  is  an 
example  to  us  to  meditate.  As  on  that  day  God  is 
said  to  have  looked  upon  His  work,  so  we,  too,  should 

1  Kiddushin  20-. ' 


120    PHILO-JUDyEUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

contemplate  the  universe  thereon,  and  consider  our 
highest  welfare.  Let  us  never  neglect  the  example 
of  the  best  life,  the  combination  of  action  and  thought, 
but  keeping  a  clear  vision  of  it  before  our  minds, 
so  far  as  our  human  nature  will  permit,  let  us  liken 
ourselves  to  immortal  God  by  word  and  deed." ' 
High-flown  this  language  may  be,  but  what  Philo 
wishes  to  mark  is  the  spiritual  value  of  the  Sabbath. 
It  is  not  merely  a  day  of  rest  from  workaday  toil,  but 
it  is  a  day  upon  which  we  devote  all  our  thoughts  to 
God,  and  enter  into  closer  communion  with  Him, 
rmji  m~K  nnnn,  a  repose  of  love  and  devotion. 
Heine  said  that  on  one  day  of  the  week  the  lowliest 
Jew  became  a  prince,  Philo  that  he  became  a  philoso- 
pher. As  in  all  of  Philo's  interpretations  of  Jewish 
custom,  there  is  something  mystic  in  his  conception  of 
the  Sabbath.  For  he  regards  all  Divine  service  and 
all  prayer  as  a  mystic  rite  which  leads  the  human  soul 
unto  God.  In  the  special  ordinances  of  the  day  he 
finds  a  spiritual  motive.  We  may  not  touch  fire,  be- 
cause fire  is  the  seed  and  beginning  of  industry.2  The 
servant  of  the  house  may  not  work,"  because  on  this 
day  he  shall  have  a  taste  of  freedom  and  humanity, 
and  he  will  work  the  more  cheerfully  during  the 
remaining  six  days.  Some  rabbis  later,  when  numbers 
of  Gentiles  had  adopted  this  without  the  other  in- 
stitutions of  Judaism,  claimed  the  Sabbath  as  the 

1  De  Decal.  20. 
*De  Septen.  7. 
"De  Septen.  6. 


PHILO  AND  THE  TORAH  121 

special  heritage  of  Israel ;  and  in  the  book  of  Jubilees 1 
it  is  said  that  Israel  alone  has  the  right  to  observe  the 
Sabbath.  Not  so  Philo,  who,  desiring  to  give  the  day 
a  value  for  all,  regards  it  as  God's  covenant  with  the 
whole  of  humanity.2 

The  Sabbath  idea  is  reflected  in  all  the  festivals, 
which  have  as  their  dominating  idea  man's  joyful 
gratitude  to  God.  Influenced  probably  by  a  mystic 
fondness  for  certain  numbers,  Philo  enumerates  ten 
festivals,  as  follows:8  (1)  Each  day  in  the  year, 
if  we  use  it  aright — a  truly  Philonic  conception; 
(2)  The  Sabbath;  (3)  The  new  moon— then  in 
Alexandria,  as  in  Palestine,  a  solemn  day;  (4)  The 
Passover;  (5)  The  bringing  of  the  first  barley 
('Orner) ;  (6)  The  Feast  of  Unleavened  Bread.  These 
last  three  are  separate  aspects  of  one  celebration, 
which  is  divided  up  so  as  to  produce  the  holy  decad. 
(7)  Pentecost;  (8)  New  Year;  (9)  Atonement  (to 
the  mystic  the  Feast  of  feasts) ;  (10)  Tabernacles. 
Following  his  design  of  revealing  in  Judaism  a  re- 
ligion of  universal  validity,  Philo  points  out  in  all 
these  festivals  a  double  meaning.  On  the  one  hand, 
they  mark  God's  providence  to  His  chosen  people, 
shown  in  some  great  event  of  their  history — this  is 
the  special  meaning  for  the  Israelite — and,  on  the 
other,  they  indicate  God's  goodness  as  revealed  in  the 
march  of  nature,  and  thus  help  to  bind  man  to  the 

'Ch.  2.  31. 

2Comp.  De  Migr.  23. 

*De  Septen.  1.  2. 


122    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

universal  process.  So  Passover  is  the  festival  of  the 
spring  and  a  memorial  of  the  creation  (rw#DS  "or 
rvpjna )  as  well  as  the  memorial  of  the  great  Exodus, 
and  of  our  gratitude  for  the  deliverance  from  the 
inhospitable  land  of  Egypt.  And  those  who  look  for 
a  deeper  moral  meaning  may  find  in  it  a  symbol  of 
the  passing  over  from  the  life  of  the  senses  to  the 
life  with  God.  Similarly,  Philo  deals  with  the  other 
festivals,1  and  in  their  particular  ceremonies  he  finds 
symbols  which  stamp  eternal  lessons  of  history  and  of 
morality  upon  our  hearts.  The  unleavened  bread  is 
the  mark  of  the  simple  life,  the  New  Year  Shofar  of 
the  Divine  rule  of  peace,  the  Sukkot  booth  of  the 
equality  of  all  men,  and,  as  he  puts  it  elsewhere,  of 
man's  duty  in  prosperity  to  remember  the  troubles 
of  his  past,  so  that  he  may  worthily  recognize  God's 
goodness.  Much  of  this  may  appear  trite  to  us;  and 
the  association  of  the  festivals  with  the  seasons  of  na- 
ture may  to  some  appear  a  false  development  of  his- 
torical Judaism;  nevertheless  Philo's  treatment  of 
this  part  of  the  Torah  is  notable.  It  shows  remark- 
able feeling  for  the  ethical  import  of  the  law,  and  it 
establishes  the  harmony  between  the  Greek  and  He- 
brew conceptions  of  the  Deity  by  combining  the  God 
of  history  with  the  God  of  nature  in  the  same  festival. 
The  ideas  were  not  unknown  to  Palestinian  rabbis; 
Philo,  by  giving  them  a  Greek  dress,  opened  them 
to  the  world. 

lDe  Septen.  18  ff. 


PHILO  AND  THE  TORAH  123 

Equally  remarkable  and  equally  suggestive  is 
Philo's  treatment  of  the  dietary  laws.  We  have  seen 
that  he  placed  them  under  the  governing  principle  of 
the  tenth  commandment,  "  Thou  shalt  not  covet/'  or, 
more  broadly,  "Thou  shalt  not  have  base  desires." 
The  dietary  laws  are  at  once  a  symbol  and  a  discipline 
of  temperance  and  self-control.  We  know  that  the 
Greeks,  as  soon  as  they  had  a  superficial  knowledge 
of  Jewish  observance,  jeered  at  the  barbarous  and 
stupid  superstition  of  refusing  to  eat  pork.  Again  we 
are  told  in  the  letter  of  the  false  Aristeas  that  when 
Ptolemy's  ambassadors  went  to  Jerusalem,  to  sum- 
mon learned  men  to  translate  the  Torah  into  Greek, 
Eleazar,  the  high  priest,  instructed  them  in  the  deeper 
moral  meaning  of  the  dietary  laws.  Further,  in  the 
fourth  book  of  the  Maccabees — an  Alexandrian  ser- 
mon upon  the  Empire  of  Eight  Reason — we  find  an 
eloquent  defence  of  these  same  laws  as  the  precepts  of 
reason  which  fortify  our  minds.  Philo,  then,  is  follow- 
ing a  tradition,  but  he  improves  upon  it.  Accepting 
the  Platonic  psychology,  which  divided  the  soul  into 
reason,  temper  (i.  e.,  will),  and  desire,  he  shows  how 
the  aim  of  the  Mosaic  law  about  food  is  to  control 
desire  and  will,  so  as  to  make  them  subservient  to  rea- 
son. By  practicing  self-restraint  in  the  two  common- 
est actions  of  life — eating  and  drinking — the  Israelite 
acquires  it  in  all  things.  The  hard  ascetic  who  would 
root  out  bodily  desires  errs  against  human  nature,  but 
the  wise  legislator  controls  them  and  curbs  them  by 
precepts,  so  that  they  are  bent  to  the  higher  reason. 


124    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

Modern  apologists  for  Judaism  have  been  found  who, 
trying  to  force  science  to  support  their  tottering  faith, 
allege  that  the  dietary  law  is  hygienic.  Philo  relies 
on  no  such  treacherous  reed.  We  may  not  eat,  he 
gays,1  the  flesh  of  the  pig  or  shell-fish,  not  because 
they  are  unhealthy,  but  because  they  are  the  sweetest 
and  most  delightful  of  all  food,  and  for  that  very  rea- 
son they  are  marks  of  the  sensual  life.  This  and  this 
alone  is  the  true  religious  justification  of  the  dietary 
law. 

In  this  way,  by  showing  how  the  letter  represents 
the  spirit,  Philo  fulfils  the  law;  his  religion  is  lib- 
eral in  thought,  conservative  in  practice.  He  sees 
clearly  that  to  throw  off  the  law  and  reject  tradition 
involves  in  the  end  chaos  and  the  overthrow  of  right- 
eousness. And  certain  Christian — and  other — theo- 
logians, if  one  may  make  bold  to  say  so,  fail  to  realize 
the  spirit  of  Philo,  when  they  speak  of  him  as  a  man 
who  approached  the  light,  but  was  too  tied  down  by 
the  old  traditions  to  receive  the  full  illumination. 
Rather  is  it  true  that  the  Jewish  aspiration  of  "  free- 
dom under  the  law,"  or  spirit  through  the  letter,  is 
absolutely  fundamental  in  Philo,  and  loyalty  to  the 
Torah  is  a  guiding  principle  in  his  religious  outlook. 
He  asserts  it  clearly  and  strikingly,  not  only  in  his 
ethical  commentary  on  the  law,  but  in  his  philosophi- 
cal allegories.  Both  passages  deserve  quotation,  since 
they  mark  the  fundamental  contrast  between  Philo 
and  non-Jewish  allegorists  of  the  law.  In  the  first 

lDe  Concupisc.  1-3. 


PHILO  AND  THE  TORAH  125 

Philo  is  commenting  upon  the  command  "  Thou  shalt 
not  add  to  or  take  away  from  the  law"  (Deut.  xix. 
14)  .*  He  shows  first  how  each  of  the  virtues  is  marred 
by  excess  in  either  direction ;  virtue  in  fact,  according 
to  the  Aristotelian  formula,  is  "  a  mean." 

"And  in  the  same  way,  if  we  add  anything  great  or 
small  to  piety,  the  queen  of  virtues,  or  take  anything 
away,  we  mar  it  and  change  its  form.  Addition  will 
engender  superstition,  and  diminution  impiety,  and  true 
piety  will  disappear,  which  above  all  things  we  should 
pray  for  to  enlighten  our  souls:  for  it  is  the  cause  of 
the  greatest  of  goods,  inducing  in  us  a  knowledge  of  our 
conduct  towards  God,  which  is  a  thing  more  royal  and 
kingly  than  any  public  office  or  distinction.  Further, 
Moses  lays  down  another  general  command,  '  Do  not 
remove  the  boundary  stone  of  thy  'neighbor,  which  thy 
ancestors  have  set  up.'  This,  methinks,  does  not  refer 
merely  to  inheritances  and  the  boundary  of  land,  but  it 
is  ordained  with  a  view  to  the  preservation  of  ancient 
customs.  For  customs  are  unwritten  laws,  the  decrees 
of  men  of  old,  not  carved  indeed  upon  pillars  and  in- 
scribed upon  parchment,  but  engraved  upon  the  souls  of 
the  generations  who  through  the  ages  maintain  the 
chosen  community.  Children  should  take  over  the  pa- 
ternal customs  from  their  parents  as  part  of  their  inheri- 
tance, for  they  were  reared  on  them,  and  lived  on  them 
from  their  swaddling  days,  and  they  should  not  neglect 
them  merely  because  the  tradition  is  not  written.  The 
man  who  obeys  the  written  laws  is  not,  indeed,  worthy 
of  praise,  for  he  may  be  constrained  thereto  by  fear  of 
punishment.  But  he  who  holds  fast  to  the  unwritten 
laws  gives  proof  of  a  voluntary  goodness  and  is  worthy 
of  our  eulogy." 

'Comp.  De  Just.  II.  360. 


126    PHILOJUD^US  OF  ALEXANDEIA 

Clearly  he  is  arguing  here  for  the  observance  of  the 
oral  law,  which  later  was  standardized  in  the  Halakah. 

In  the  other  passage,  which  occurs  in  the  philo- 
sophical book  "  On  the  Migration  of  Abraham," 1  he 
sets  forth  the  reason  of  the  authority  of  the  law  with 
more  argument,  and  controverts  those  who  would 
allegorize  away  the  ordinances. 

"  To  whom,  then,  God  has  granted  both  to  be  and  to 
seem  good,  he  is  truly  happy  and  truly  renowned.  And 
we  must  have  a  great  care  for  reputation,  as  a  matter  of 
great  importance  and  of  much  value,  for  our  social  and 
bodily  life.  [By  reputation  Philo  means  reputation  of 
being  loyal  Jews.  He  is  addressing  here  an  esoteric 
circle  who,  if  they  were  lax,  would  bring  philosophy  into 
disrepute.]  And  almost  all  can  secure  it,  who  are  well 
content  not  to  disturb  established  customs,  but  dili- 
gently preserve  the  constitution  of  their  nation.  But 
there  are  some  who,  looking  upon  the  written  laws  as 
symbols  of  intellectual  things,  lay  great  stress  on  these, 
but  neglect  the  former.  Such  men  I  would  blame  for 
their  shallowness  of  mind  [ei^petal.  For  they  ought  to 
give  good  heed  to  both — to  the  accurate  investigation  of 
the  unseen  meaning,  but  also  to  the  blameless  observ- 
ance of  the  visible  letter.  But  now,  as  if  they  were 
living  by  themselves  in  a  desert,  and  were  souls  without 
bodies,  and  knew  nothing  of  city  or  village  or  house  or 
intercourse  with  men,  they  despise  all  that  seems  valu- 
able to  the  many,  and  search  for  bare  and  naked  truth 
as  it  is  in  itself.  Such  people  the  sacred  Scripture 
teaches  to  give  good  heed  to  a  good  reputation,  and  to 
abolish  none  of  those  customs  which  greater  and  more 
inspired  men  than  we  instituted  in  the  past.  For,  be- 
cause the  seventh  day  teaches  us  symbolically  concern- 

»Ch.  16. 


127 


ing  the  power  of  the  uncreated  God,  and  the  inactivity 
of  the  creature,  we  must  not  therefore  abolish  its  ordi- 
nances, so  as  to  light  a  fire,  or  till  the  ground,  or  bear  a 
burden,  or  prosecute  a  lawsuit,  or  demand  the  restora- 
tion of  a  deposit,  or  exact  the  repayment  of  a  loan,  or 
do  any  other  thing,  which  on  week-days  is  allowed.  Be- 
cause the  festivals  are  symbols  of  spiritual  joy  and  of 
our  gratitude  to  God,  we  must  not  therefore  give  up  the 
fixed  assemblies  at  the  proper  seasons  of  the  year.  Nor, 
because  circumcision  symbolizes  the  excision  of  all  lusts 
and  passions,  and  the  destruction  of  the  impious  opinion 
according  to  which  the  mind  imagines  that  it  is  itself 
capable  of  production,  must  we  therefore  abolish  the  law 
of  fleshly  circumcision.  We  should  have  to  neglect  the 
service  of  the  temple,  and  a  thousand  other  things,  if 
we  were  to  restrict  ourselves  only  to  the  allegorical  or 
symbolic  sense.  That  sense  resembles  the  soul,  the 
other  sense  the  body.  Just  as  we  must  be  careful  of  the 
body,  as  the  house  of  the  soul,  so  must  we  give  heed  to 
the  letter  of  the  written  laws.  For  only  when  these  are 
faithfully  observed,  will  the  inner  meaning,  of  which 
they  are  the  symbols,  become  more  clearly  realized,  and, 
at  the  same  time,  the  blame  and  accusation  of  the  multi- 
tude will  be  avoided."  * 

Philo's  position  is,  then,  that  man  on  the  one  hand 
owes  loyalty  to  his  nation,  and  on  the  other  is  not  only 
a  creature  of  spirit,  but  has  a  body  and  bodily  pas- 
sions. He  cannot,  therefore,  have  a  religion  which  is 
individual  or  merely  spiritual,  but  he  requires  com- 
mon forms  and  ceremonies  that  can  bind  him  with 

1 1  have  taken  this  translation  and  that  on  the  next 
page  from  Mr.  Claude  Montefiore's  Florilegium  Philonis. 
Jewish  Quarterly  Review,  vol.  VII. 


128    PHILO-JUDyEUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

the  rest  of  the  community,  and  train  his  body  by  good 
habit  to  obey  his  reason.  We  do  not  reach  the 
spirit  by  denying  but  by  obeying  the  letter.  To 
the  mere  formal  observance  of  the  law  and  the  Tin- 
reasoning  custom  which  blindly  follows  the  practice 
of  our  fathers  (auvrjdtia)  Philo  is  equally  opposed,  and 
he  protests,  with  the  earnestness  of  an  Isaiah,  against 
superstitious  sacrifice  and  against  the  lip-service  of 
the  materialist.1 

"  If  a  man  practices  ablutions  and  purifications,  but  de- 
files his  mind  while  he  cleanses  his  body;  or  if,  through 
his  wealth,  he  founds  a  temple  at  a  large  outlay  and 
expense;  or  if  he  offers  hecatombs  and  sacrifices  oxen 
without  number,  or  adorns  the  shrine  with  rich  orna- 
ments, or  gives  endless  timber  and  cunningly  wrought 
work,  more  precious  than  silver  or  gold — let  him  none 
the  more  be  called  religious  (evae/3^.  For  he  has  wan- 
dered far  from  the  path  of  religion,  mistaking  ritual  for 
holiness,  and  attempting  to  bribe  the  Incorruptible,  and 
to  flatter  Him  whom  none  can  flatter.  God  welcomes 
genuine  service,  and  that  is  the  service  of  a  soul  that 
offers  the  bare  and  simple  sacrifice  of  truth,  but  from 
false  service,  the  mere  display  of  material  wealth,  he 
turns  away." 

Lot's  daughter,  born  of  a  pillar  of  stone,  symbolizes 
this  unthinking,  hypertrophied  religion;  and  custom, 
its  mother,  which  always  lags  behind  and  has  no 
seed  of  life,  is  the  enemy  of  truth.  The  religious 
man  pursueth  righteousness  righteously,  the  super- 
stitious unrighteously. 

1  Comp.  De  Ebr.  40,  and  De  Spec.  Leg.  II.  414. 


PHILO  AND  THE  TOEAH  129 

Thus  Philo  holds  the  balance  between  a  formless 
spirituality  and  an  unspiritual  formalism.  The  end 
of  religious  observance  is  the  love  of  God,  but  the  love 
of  God  requires  more  than  feeling;  it  must  impreg- 
nate life.  Dubnow,  in  his  summary  of  Jewish  his- 
tory, formulates  an  epigram,  which,  like  most  of  its 
kind,  becomes  in  its  conciseness  and  pointed  antithe- 
sis a  half-truth.  "At  Jerusalem/'  he  says,  "Juda- 
ism appeared  as  a  system  of  practical  ceremonies;  at 
Alexandria  as  a  complex  of  abstract  symbols."  No 
doubt  it  is  true  that  at  Jerusalem  the  practical  side 
of  the  law  was  most  prominent,  but  the  spiritual  ex- 
altation to  which  it  should  lead  was  appraised  as  the 
true  end  by  the  great  rabbis.  Witness  Hillel,  and 
indeed  all  the  writers  of  the  gnomic  wisdom  in  the 
"  Ethics  of  the  Fathers."  At  Alexandria,  again,  while 
the  philosophical  principle  underlying  the  outward 
practice  was  especially  emphasized,  the  practice  itself 
was  loyally  observed,  and  its  value  perceived,  by  those 
who  most  thoroughly  understood  Judaism.  Witness 
the  writings  of  Philo,  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  and 
the  fourth  book  of  the  Maccabees.  The  antithesis 
between  letter  and  spirit,  faith  and  works,  is  in  truth 
a  false  one;  and  wherever  the  significance  of  Judaism 
has  been  fully  comprehended,  the  two  aspects  of  the 
law  have  been  inextricably  intertwined.  As  Philo  un- 
derstood the  Jewish  mission,  it  was  not  merely  to  dif- 
fuse the  Jewish  God-idea,  but  quite  as  much  to  diffuse 
the  Jewish  attitude  to  God,  the  way  of  life.  Abstract 
ideas,  however  lofty,  can  never  be  the  bond  of  a  re- 
9 


130    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

ligious  community,  nor  can  they  be  a  safeguard  for 
moral  conduct.  Sooner  or  later  congregations  must 
submit  themselves  to  some  law,  be  it  a  law  of  dogma, 
or  be  it  a  law  of  conduct.  Antinomianism,  the 
opposition  to  the  law,  to  which  Paul  later  gave  power- 
ful, even  fanatical,  expression,  was  a  strong  move- 
ment at  Alexandria  in  Philo's  day.  Preparatory  to 
the  spread  of  Christianity,  numerous  sects  sprang  up 
there  which  purported  to  follow  a  spiritual  Judaism 
wherein  the  law  was  abrogated  because,  forsooth,  its 
symbolism  was  understood !  In  the  extreme  allegor- 
ists,  whom  Philo  attacks  for  their  shallowness,  one 
may  discern  the  prototypes  of  the  Cainites,  Ophites, 
Melchizedecians,  and  the  rest  of  the  heretical  parties 
that  produced  the  religious  chaos  of  the  next  cen- 
turies. From  that  welter  of  opinions  there  at  last 
emerged  dogmatic  Christianity.  The  Christian  re- 
formers came  to  free  man  from  the  yoke  of  the  law; 
but  their  successors  imposed  on  the  mind  the  fetters 
of  dogma,  and,  in  order  to  check  the  passions  of  the 
body,  advocated  renunciation  and  asceticism.  So  that 
not  only  Judaism  as  a  system  of  belief,  but  Judaism 
as  a  system  of  life  was  lost  in  their  handiwork.  Spir- 
ituality lacking  knowledge  and  allegorism  in  excess 
led  to  this  result.  In  Philo  they  are  controlled  by 
affection  for  the  Torah,  and  by  a  conviction  of  the 
need  for  national  cohesion. 

Philo  is  loyal  to  the  Jewish  tradition  not  only  be- 
cause he  had  a  deep  feeling  for  what  a  modern  teacher 
has  called  the  catholic  conscience  and  the  historical 


PHILO  AND  THE  TORAH  131 

continuity  of  Judaism,  but  because  his  philosophy 
was  based  on  a  conviction  that  the  Jewish  religion  was 
the  truest  guide  to  conduct  and  righteousness  and  to 
the  love  of  God.  To  him,  as  to  Plato  and  Aristotle, 
the  law  was  the  outward  register  of  the  moral  ideal; 
the  "  word-and-deed  symbols "  of  ceremonial  and 
prayer  were  emblems  indeed  of  moral  principles,  but 
at  the  same  time  they  had  an  intrinsic  value,  in  that 
they  impressed  these  principles  upon  the  mind,  and 
brought  belief  and  action  into  harmony.  "  Religion 
is  law,  not  philosophy,"  said  Hobbes.  With  Philo, 
religion  is  law  and  philosophy.  Thus  the  love  of  the 
Torah  is  of  the  essence  of  his  religious  thought.  As 
he  puts  it  in  the  exhortation  to  his  fellow-ambassadors 
before  Gaius,1  "  to  die  in  defence  of  it  is  a  kind  of 
life/'  In  his  philosophical  Judaism  he  sought  always 
for  the  universal  and  the  spiritual,  but  so  as  always 
to  increase  the  honor  of  the  law,  and  not  only  of  the 
law  but  of  the  customs  of  his  ancestors,  thinking  with 
the  Psalmist  that  "  the  Torah  is  a  tree  of  life  to  those 
who  keep  fast  hold  of  her,  and  those  who  support  her 
are  blessed." 

1De  Leg.  II.  574. 


PHILO'S  THEOLOGY 

"The  most  remarkable  feature  about  Judaism," 
says  Darmesteter,  "  is  that  without  a  philosophical 
system  it  had  reached  a  philosophical  conclusion  about 
the  government  of  the  world  and  the  nature  of  God." 3 
The  same  idea  underlies  the  statement  of  the  Peri- 
patetic writer  Theophrastus  (who  lived  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  fourth  century  B.  c.  E.)  that  the  Jews  are  a 
people  of  philosophers,*  and  the  epigram  of  Heine, 
that  they  pray  in  metaphysics.  Intuitively,  the  law- 
giver and  prophets  of  the  Hebrew  race  had  attained 
a  conception  of  monotheism  to  which  the  greatest  of 
the  Greek  philosophers  had  hardly  struggled  by  rea- 
son. The  Greeks  had  started  with  separate  nature- 
powers,  which  they  had  finally  resolved  into  a  supreme 
nature-force;  the  Hebrews  had  started  with  the  his- 
torical God  of  their  fathers,  whom  they  had  universal- 
ized into  the  Creator  of  the  world  and  Father  of  all 
the  human  race.  Wellhausen  has  suggested  that  the 
intellectual  development  of  Judaism  with  its  tendency 
to  become  a  purified  monotheism  moved  in  the  same 
direction  towards  which  Greek  thought  tended  in  its 
philosophical  speculation  of  the  universe.  The  differ- 

1  Essais,  Les  Proph&tes  d'  Israel. 

»  Frag,  cited  by  Porphyry,  De  Abstinentia  II.  25. 


PHILO'S  THEOLOGY  133 

ence  between  the  two  conceptions  of  God,  however,  re- 
mained even  in  their  universalized  aspect;  the  one 
was  an  impersonal  world-force,  the  other  a  personal 
God  in  direct  relation  with  individual  man.  Else- 
where than  in  Judaea,  it  has  heen  well  said,  religious 
development  reaches  unity  only  by  sacrificing  per- 
sonality. But  the  prophets,  whose  conception  of  Gtod 
was  imaginative  rather  than  rational,  preserved  His 
nearness  while  expanding  His  sway.  Israel,  to  use 
Philo's  etymology,  is  the  man  who  sees  God,1  and 
his  religious  genius  gave  to  the  world  a  personal 
incorporeal  Deity,  who  is  both  transcendent  and 
immanent,  personal  and  yet  above  human  concep- 
tion. It  is  unnecessary  to  quote  evidence  of  this 
view  of  the  Godhead  in  the  Bible,  and  it  would  be 
superfluous  to  adduce  passages  from  the  rabbis,  did 
they  not  bear  a  striking  similarity  to  the  words  of 
Philo.  God  to  them  is  not  only  the  Creator  of  the 
world,  but  also  the  Father  of  the  world,  the  Governor 
of  the  world,  the  Only  One  of  the  world,  the  Space  of 
the  world,  filling  it  as  the  soul  fills  the  body.*  Now, 
this  Jewish  conception  of  God  is  dominant  in  Philo. 
To  him  also  God  is  not  only  the  Creator  but  the 
Father  of  the  universe.8  He  is  the  One  and  the  All.4 
He  is  ever  at  rest,  yet  he  outstrippeth  everything, 

lDe  Cong.  10. 

3  Comp.   Schechter,   "  Aspects  of  Rabbinic  Theology," 
pp.  21  ff. 

*  L.  A.  I.  7. 

4  L.  A.  I.  14. 


134    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

nearest  to  everyone,  yet  far  removed,  everywhere  and 
nowhere,  above  and  outside  the  universe,  yet  filling 
creation  with  Himself.1  Philo  loves  to  attach  to  the 
Deity  these  opposite  predicates,  for  in  this  way  alone 
can  we  form  for  ourselves  some  conception,  however 
inadequate,  of  His  Being.  Strictly,  God  is  uncondi- 
tioned, and  cannot  be  the  subject  of  predication,  for 
all  determination  involves  negation,  and  hence  in  one 
aspect  He  is  not  conceivable  nor  describable,  nor 
nameable.*  Siegfried  and  Zeller  press  this  negative 
attitude  to  the  Deity,  and  find  that  there  is  an  inher- 
ent contradiction  in  Philo's  system,  which  ruins  it, 
in  that  his  God,  upon  whom  all  depends  and  who  is 
the  object  of  all  knowledge,  is  absolutely  unknowable 
and  unapproachable.  But  this  is  to  take  Philo  ac- 
cording to  the  strict  letter  to  the  neglect  of  the  spirit, 
and  to  do  that  with  one  so  eloquent  and  so  careless  of 
verbal  accuracy  is  utterly  to  misunderstand  him. 

The  Greek  philosophers  in  their  attempt  to  formu- 
late an  exact  notion  of  the  First  Being  by  abstract 
metaphysics  had,  indeed,  conceived  it  in  this  fashion ; 
and  Philo,  harmonizing  Greek  metaphysics  and  He- 
brew intuition,  is  drawn  at  times  into  a  presentation 
of  God  which  appears  to  deny  His  personality  and 
make  of  Him  an  abstraction.  What  has  been  said  of 
Spinoza  is  true  no  less  of  Philo.8  "  The  tendency  to 
unity,  to  the  infinite,  to  religion,  overbalanced  itself 

lDe  Confus.  2,  De  Post.  C.  5. 

a  Comp.  De  Somn.  I.  11,  De  Mut.  Nom.  4. 

8  Caird,  "  Life  of  Spinoza  "  II. 


PHILO'S  THEOLOGY  135 

till,  by  its  mere  excess,  it  seemed  to  be  changed  into 
its  opposite.  But  this  is  not  his  spirit,  only  the  dead 
ultimate  result  of  an  imperfect  logic  that  confuses  an 
abstract  with  a  concrete  unity/'  In  truth,  the  mo- 
ment man  tries  to  define  his  conception  of  God's  es- 
sence in  words,  he  either  impairs  and  perverts  his 
idea,  or  he  must  use  words  that  do  not  really  make 
the  idea  any  clearer  than  it  was  unexpressed.  Thus 
in  the  Hymn  of  Sir  the  writer,  versifying  the  creeds 
of  Maimonides,  seeks  to  define  God:  "He  is  a  Unity, 
but  there  is  no  Unity  like  His;  He  is  hidden  and 
there  is  no  end  to  His  oneness."  But  nobody  can 
claim  that  this  gives  any  adequate  conception  of  what 
he  means.  So,  too,  Philo,  when  he  tries  to  analyze 
God's  being  metaphysically,  only  obscures  the  God  of 
his  soul,  who  was  the  historical  God  of  Israel. 

The  Hebraic  God,  like  the  Greek  First  Being,  has 
no  qualities,  but  unlike  the  other  He  has  ethical  at- 
tributes, and  it  is  by  these  that  we  know  Him  and  by 
these  that  He  is  related  to  the  universe  and  to  man. 
"  Failing  to  comprehend  Him  in  His  essence  we  must 
aim  at  the  next  best  thing,  to  comprehend  Him  as 
He  is  manifested  to  the  world."  1  So  in  the  "  Hymn 
of  Unity  "  it  is  written,  "  In  images  they  told  of  Thee, 
but  not  according  to  Thy  essence !  They  but  likened 
Thee  in  accordance  with  Thy  works."  *  And  this  is 
the  manner  in  which  Philo  conceives  Him :  "  God's 
grace  and  goodness  it  is  which  are  the  causes  of  crea- 

1  De  Mon.  I.  5. 

1  Comp.  "  The  Authorised  Prayer  Book,"  p.  78. 


136  PHILO-JUD;ETJS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

tion."1  "The  just  man,  seeking  the  nature  of  all 
things,  makes  this  most  excellent  discovery,  that  all 
things  are  due  to  the  grace  of  God."  "To  those  who 
ask  the  origin  of  creation,  one  could  most  easily  reply 
that  it  is  the  goodness  and  grace  of  God  which  He  be- 
stowed on  the  race  that  is  after  His  image.2  "  For  all 
that  is  in  the  universe  and  the  universe  itself  are  the 
gift  and  bounty  and  grace  of  God." !  Again,  God  is 
omnipotent ;  He  could  make  all  evil,  but  He  wills  only 
what  is  best." 4  "  All  is  due  to  God's  grace,  though 
nothing  is  worthy  of  it; '  but  God  looked  to  His  own 
eternal  goodness,  and  considered  that  to  do  good  be- 
fitted His  own  blessed  and  happy  nature." 

Philo's  life-aim,  as  we  have  seen,'  was  to  see  God 
in  all  things  and  all  things  in  God.  He  is  the  sole 
principle  of  being,  exercising  continuous  causality; 
and  yet  He  is  always  at  rest,  for  His  energy  is 
the  expression  of  His  being.  "  He  never  ceases  to 
create,  for  creation  is  as  proper  to  Him  as  it  is 
proper  to  fire  to  burn  and  to  snow  to  cause  cold."' 
Further,  to  Him  all  human  activity  and  excellence  are 
directly  due.  He  fertilizes  virtue  by  sending  down 
the  seed  from  Heaven,8  and  He  brings  forth  wisdom 

1  Quod  Deus  23. 

*  De  Mundi  Op.  5. 

8  L.  A.  III.  24. 

*De  8omn.  II.  38. 

"L.  A.  III.  24. 

4  See  p.  77,  above. 

7L.  A.  I.  3. 

*De  Plant.  7,  Quod  Det.  31. 


PHILO'S  THEOLOGY  137 

from  the  human  mind  by  His  own  Divine  effluence. 
"  It  is  the  distinctive  feature  of  Jewish  thought,"  said 
Spinoza,  "never  to  make  account  of  particular  and 
secondary  causes,  but  in  a  spirit  of  devotion,  piety, 
and  godliness  to  refer  all  things  directly  to  the 
Deity."  No  Jewish  thinker  ever  applied  this  prin- 
ciple more  thoroughly  than  Philo;  and  it  gives  an 
unique  color  to  his  work  in  the  history  of  ancient 
philosophy.  All  our  lives  are  one  unceasing  miracle, 
due  to  the  constant  manifestation  of  God's  power; 
and  the  miracles  of  the  Bible  are  examples  of  the 
universal  working  of  Divine  care  rather  than  excep- 
tions from  it. 

The  dominant  feeling  behind  Greek  thought  is  that 
man  is  the  measure  of  all  things:  Plato,  attacking 
the  standpoint  of  his  nation,  had  declared  that  God  is 
the  measure,  and  Philo  repeats  his  maxim  with  a  new 
intensity.  It  means  for  him  that  man's  mind  is  a 
fragment  or  particle  of  the  Divine  universal  mind, 
which,  however,  is  impotent  till  called  into  activity 
'by  the  further  Divine  gift  of  inspiration.  Knowl- 
edge and  happiness,  therefore,  come  not  through  God, 
but  from  God.1  "The  Divine  Word  streams  down 
from  the  fount  of  wisdom,  and  waters  the  plants  of 
virtuous  souls."  *  "  To  God  alone  is  it  fitting  to  use 
the  word  '  my/  " 8  or,  put  in  another  way,  man  has 
only  the  usufruct  and  God  the  ownership  of  his 

1De  Cherubim  35. 

'L.  A.  II.  70. 

'  De  Cherubim  32,  De  Somn.  II,  56. 


138    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

powers.  Pride  of  intellect  is  therefore  a  deadly  sin, 
because  it  involves  a  false,  incomplete  idea  of  God,  and 
true  knowledge  involves  reverence.  The  ideal  of  the 
Greek  sage,  the  independent  reason,  is  a  godless  thing, 
and  those  in  whom  a  knowledge  of  Greek  philosophy 
produces  intellectual  pride  are  not  disciples  of  Divine 
Wisdom.  In  a  fine  passage  Philo  charges  with 
hypocrisy  those  who  talk  in  high-sounding  language 
about  the  all-powerful  Deity,  and  yet  declare  that  by 
their  own  intellect  they  can  comprehend  the  world.1 
This  was  the  attitude  not  only  of  the  proud  Stoic, 
but  of  certain  kindred  Jewish  sects,  which  were  sub- 
ject to  Greek  influences,  such  as  the  Gnostics  and 
the  Cainites.  And  upon  them  Philo  appears  to  be 
pouring  his  wrath  when  he  exclaims :  "  How  have 
you  the  effrontery  to  go  on  making  and  listening  to 
fine  professions  about  piety  and  the  honor  of  God, 
when  you  have  within  you,  forsooth,  the  mind  equal 
to  God  that  comprehends  all  human  things,  and  can 
combine  good  and  evil  portions,  giving  to  some  a 
mixed,  to  others  an  unmixed  lot?  And  when  any- 
body accuses  you  of  impiety,  you  brazenly  declare 
that  you  belong  to  the  school  of  that  noble  guide  and 
teacher  Cain  (i.  e.,  insolent  reason),  who  bade  you 
pay  honor  to  the  secondary  rather  than  the  primary 
cause/' 

Philo  has  often  been  reproached  with  intellectual- 
ism,  and  excessive  regard  to  acquired  wisdom,  and  it 

1  De  Post.  C.  11. 


PHILO'S  THEOLOGY  139 

ma}r  be  urged  that  by  his  allegorical  method  he  tried 
to  find  in  the  Bible  the  sanction  of  two  degrees  of 
religious  faith,  the  higher  for  the  philosopher  and  the 
lower  for  the  ordinary  man.  At  the  same  time,  how- 
ever, before  his  God  he  retains  the  childlike  simplicity 
of  the  most  un-Hellenic  rabbi,  and  the  perfect  humil- 
ity of  the  Hasid.  His  conviction  of  the  dependence  of 
all  upon  God's  grace  is  the  perfect  corrective  of  his 
intellectual  exclusiveness.  The  idea  of  God  as  the 
unity  which  comprehends  everything  and  causes 
everything  is  the  great  Jewish  contribution  to 
thought,  and  binds  our  literature  together  in  all  its 
manifestations.  It  characterizes  and  unites  the  po- 
etical utterance  of  the  Bible  prophets,  the  pious  wis- 
dom of  the  rabbis,  the  philosophical  systems  of  Philo 
and  Maimonides. 

The  more  sublime  and  exalted  the  conception  of 
God,  the  more  imperative  became  the  need  for  the 
thinking  Jew  to  explain  how  the  perfect  infinite  Be- 
ing came  into  relation  with  the  imperfect  finite  world 
of  man  and  matter.  How  can  the  incorporeal  God  be 
the  founder  of  the  material  universe?  How  can  the 
infinite  mind  be  present  in  the  finite  thought  of  man  ? 
How  can  the  all-good  Power  be  the  creator  of  the  evil 
which  we  see  in  the  material  world  and  of  the  wicked- 
ness that  flourisheth  among  men?  These  questions 
presented  themselves  to  the  Israelite  after  he  had  con- 
summated his  marvellous  religious  intuition,  and  be- 
came the  starting-point  of  a  theology  which  is  nascent 
in  the  Wisdom  literature  of  the  Bible.  Theology  is 


140    PHILO-JUDjEUS  OF  ALEXANDKIA 

the  reasoning  about  God  which  follows  always  in  the 
footsteps  of  religious  certitude.  First,  man  by  his  in- 
tuitive reason  rises  to  some  idea  of  the  Godhead  satis- 
fying to  his  emotion;  next,  by  his  discursive  reason, 
he  endeavors  to  justify  that  idea  to  his  experience  in 
analyzing  God's  operations.  Renan,  disposing  sweep- 
ingly  of  a  great  question,  declares  that  the  Jewish 
monotheism  excluded  any  true  theology.  But,  in  fact, 
in  Palestine,  and  still  more  in  Alexandria  from  the 
third  century  B.  c.  E.,  Jewish  thought  had  as  one  of 
its  constant  aims  to  develop  a  theory  of  the  operations 
of  the  one  God  in  the  world  of  material  plurality. 
When  the  Jews  came  in  contact  with  the  cosmological 
mythology  of  Babylon,  their  God  seemed  to  soar  be- 
yond the  reach  of  men,  and  they  looked  to  powers 
nearer  them  to  bridge  the  widening  gulf.  To  some 
extent  this  aim  engendered  a  modification  in  the  re- 
ligious monotheism,  and  led  to  the  interposition  of 
intermediate  conceptions  between  the  Inconceivable 
and  man.  "The  whole  angelology,"  says  Deutsch,1 
"  so  strikingly  simple  before  the  Captivity  and  so  won- 
derfully complex  after  it,  owes  its  quick  development 
in  Babylonian  soil  to  some  awe-stricken  desire  which 
grows  with  growing  culture,  removing  the  inconceiv- 
able Being  further  and  further  from  human  touch  or 
knowledge."  Speaking  generally,  it  may  be  said  that 
reflection  about  God's  relations  produced  in  Palestine 
the  doctrine  of  angels,  in  Alexandria  the  doctrine  of 
Wisdom  and  the  Logos.  At  the  same  time  the  Wis- 

1  Essay  on  the  Talmud. 


PHILO'S  THEOLOGY  141 

dom  and  the  Word  were  not  unknown  to  the  Pales- 
tinian Midrash,  and  the  hierarchies  of  angels  to  the 
Alexandrian,  for  the  suggestion  of  the  different  sub- 
ordinate powers  had  been  evolved  before  the  two  tra- 
ditions had  become  independent.  The  doctrine  of 
angels  never  indeed  won  recognition  from  the  rabbis, 
but  it  was  for  centuries  an  element  of  popular  belief. 

More  philosophical  than  the  doctrine  of  angels  was 
the  conception  of  different  attributes  of  God  (nnn), 
which  were  different  manifestations  of  His  activit)', 
to  the  human  mind  separable  and  distinguishable 
from  each  other,  though  absolutely  they  were  insep- 
arable aspects  of  the  Godhead.  Chief  among  these 
were  the  attribute  of  mercy  and  the  attribute  of  jus- 
tice, D'ornn  mo  and  pn  mo,1  by  which,  according 
to  a  Midrash,  Adam  was  driven  from  Eden.  And 
these  conceptions,  though  distrusted  by  the  Syna- 
gogue, entered  into  later  parts  of  the  Prayer  Book. 
"  Attribute  of  Mercy,  reveal  thyself  for  us ;  make  our 
supplication  to  fall  at  the  feet  of  Thy  Creator ;  and  on 
behalf  of  Thy  people  beseech  for  mercy  " ;  thus  runs  a 
fine  prayer  in  the  Ne'ilah  service  of  the  Day  of  Atone- 
ment, and  many  of  the  other  Selihot  prove  the  persist- 
ence of  this  development  of  Jewish  belief.  The  theory 
of  Divine  attributes  was  common  to  Palestine  and 
Alexandria,  and  plays,  as  we  shall  see,  an  important 
part  in  Philo's  *  thought ;  but  the  distinctive  Hellenis- 
tic theology  is  the  hypostasis  of  the  Wisdom  and  the 

1  Bereshit  Rabba  21,  and  Yalkut  26. 
"Comp.  De  Plant.  30. 


142    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDKIA 

Word  of  God.  In  the  Bible  itself,  and  notably  in 
Proverbs,  we  find  Wisdom  personified — the  first  vague, 
poetical  suggestion  of  a  Jewish  theology.  As  the  Jews 
came  into  contact  with  Hellenic  influence,  the  ten- 
dency to  develop  the  personification  into  a  power  in- 
creased, and  may  be  traced  through  the  first  flower  of 
Grasco-Jewish  culture,  the  Wisdom  literature.  The 
Greek  philosophers  had  conceived  the  First  Cause  as  a 
ruling  Mind,  or  universal  Eeason,  and  influenced  by 
this  conception,  yet  loyal  to  their  monotheistic  faith, 
the  Jewish  writers  of  the  Hellenistic  age  spoke  of  the 
Wisdom  as  the  minister  of  God,  the  power  by  which 
He  ruled  creation.  The  apocryphal  books  of  Eccle- 
siasticus  and  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon  exhibit  Wisdom 
passing  from  the  poetical  personification  of  the  Bible 
to  the  separate  hypostasis  of  theology.  In  the  verse 
of  the  Bible  sage,  "  Wisdom  hath  builded  her  house, 
she  hath  hewn  out  her  seven  pillars"  (Prov.  ix.  1), 
she  is  the  creation  of  the  purely  poetical  fancy,  but 
in  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon  she  has  become  a  link  be- 
tween Heaven  and  earth,  the  creation  of  the  theolo- 
gian's reflection.  "  She  reacheth  from  one  end  of  the 
world  to  the  other  with  strength,  and  ordereth  all 
things  graciously.  She  is  settled  by  God  on  His 
throne,  and  by  her  He  made  the  world,  by  her  the 
righteous  were  saved.  She  watched  over  the  father  of 
the  human  race,  and  she  delivered  Israel  from  Egypt." 
In  Ecclesiasticus  it  is  written,  "  All  Wisdom  is  from 
the  Lord  and  is  with  Him  forever.  She  cometh  forth 
from  the  mouth  of  the  Most  High,  and  was  created  be- 


PHILO'S  THEOLOGY  143 

fore  all  things.  God  having  fashioned  her  from  the 
beginning  placed  her  over  all  His  works.  Then  she 
covered  the  earth  as  a  mist,  she  pitched  her  tent  in 
high  places  and  her  palace  was  in  a  pillar  of  cloud. 
She  ministered  in  the  tabernacle,  and  was  established 
in  Zion,  in  Jerusalem,  the  beloved  city."  In  similar 
strain,  in  the  apocalyptic  book  of  Enoch  (xxx),  God 
says,  "  On  the  sixth  day  I  ordered  My  Wisdom  to 
make  man";  and  in  the  Sibylline  Oracles  and  Aris- 
tobulus  she  appears  as  the  assessor  of  God  who  ruleth 
over  men. 

Parallel  with  Wisdom,  the  Word  of  God  was  de- 
veloped into  something  between  a  poetical  image  and 
a  separate  power.  Again  the  development  starts  from 
a  Biblical  metaphor.  "  By  the  word  of  the  Lord  were 
the  heavens  created,  and  all  their  host  by  the  breath 
of  His  mouth  "(Ps.  xxxiii).  "  God  of  our  Fathers  and 
Lord  of  Mercy,  who  didst  make  all  things  by  Thy 
word,"  says  the  writer  of  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon. 
Inspired  again  by  the  phrase  of  the  Psalmist,  "  He 
sent  His  word,  and  healed  them"  (Ps.  cvi.  20),  he 
hymns  the  Divine  Logos  as  the  all-powerful  emissary 
doing  God's  bidding  among  men.  "It  was  neither 
herb  nor  emollient  that  cured  Israel  in  the  wilderness 
(when  bitten  by  the  fiery  scorpions),  but  Thy  Logos, 
0  Lord,  which  heals  all  things."  Later,  when  he  de- 
scribes the  destruction  of  the  first-born  in  Egypt,  he 
rises  in  a  paean  to  a  finer  poetical  flight:  "When 
tranquil  silence  folded  all  things,  and  night  in  her 
own  swiftness  was  in  the  midst  of  her  course,  Thy  all- 


144    PHILO-JUDyEUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

powerful  Logos  leaped  from  heaven,  from  his  royal 
throne,  a  stern  warrior  into  the  midst  of  the  doomed 
land,  bearing  as  a  sharp  sword  Thy  Divine  command- 
ment, and  having  taken  his  stand  filled  all  things 
with  death :  and  he  touched  heaven  and  walked  upon 
earth."  The  Jewish  poet,  rejecting  the  idea  that  the 
perfect  God  could  descend  to  earth  and  slay  men, 
brushes  away  the  anthropomorphism  of  the  Bible, 
and  summons  from  his  mind  this  creation  mixed  of 
Hebrew  imagination  and  Greek  reason.  So,  too,  On- 
kelos,  wherever  activity  upon  earth  was  ascribed  to 
God,  wrote,  in  his  translation  (Targum)  of  Scrip- 
ture, "  the  word  of  the  Lord,"  and  for  the  material 
hand  he  substituted  the  more  abstract  might.  The 
same  development,1  under  the  names  of  Memra  and 
(less  frequently)  of  im,  shows  that  the  word-agent 
of  God  appealed  to  certain  of  the  rabbis  in  their 
desire  to  explain  away,  on  the  one  hand,  expressions 
in  the  Bible  which  seemed  to  invest  the  Deity  with 
corporeal  qualities,  and,  on  the  other,  so  to  divide  His 
infinite  perfection  as  to  make  His  presence  immanent 
upon  earth. 

The  teachers  at  Alexandria  were  above  all  others 
induced  to  develop  the  Word  into  the  active  power, 
since  they  seemed  thereby  to  find  in  the  Bible  a  re- 
markable anticipation  of  Greek  philosophy.  The  Greek 
Logos,  by  which  "  the  Word  "  was  translated  in  the 
Septuagint,  meant  also  thought  and  reason,  and  dur- 
ing the  Hellenistic  age  was  the  regular  term  by  which 

1  Comp.  Hagigah  14. 


PHILO'S  THEOLOGY  145 

the  philosophical  schools  expressed  the  impersonal 
world-force  which  governed  all  things.  The  Logos 
idea  among  the  Jews  was  a  modification  of  intuitive 
and  nai've  monotheism;  among  the  Greeks  it  was  a 
step  upwards,  demanded  by  reason,  from  polytheism  to 
a  monistic  view  of  the  universe.  By  the  first  century 
its  recognition  as  the  ruling  power  in  both  the  physi- 
cal and  moral  universe  had  become  a  point  of  union 
in  all  philosophical  schools — the  common  stamp  of 
philosophical  theology.  Between  the  Semitic  min- 
isterial word  uttered  by  a  personal  Being  and  the 
Greek  pantheistic  governing  reason,  there  was  proba- 
bly an  early  connection,  due  to  Eastern  influences 
which  operated  upon  the  founders  of  Greek  philos- 
ophy, which  later  schools  lost  sight  of.  When  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures  were  translated,  the  two  coalesced 
more  fruitfully  in  the  Greek  term  Logos,  and  a 
point  of  union  was  provided  between  the  philo- 
sophical and  the  Jewish  theology.  Moreover  the  local 
Egyptian  influence  aided  the  union,  for  the  god 
Thoth  was  also  identified  with  the  Logos,  which  thus 
appeared  as  a  religious  conception  common  to  all 
races,  the  basis  of  a  universal  creed.  And  besides  the 
world-reason  of  the  philosophers,  another  Greek  in- 
fluence no  doubt  tended  to  further  the  development 
of  the  Logos  in  Jewish  thought.  One  of  the  most 
marked  characteristics  of  the  Hellenistic  age  is  the' 
renascence  of  wonder  at  the  institutions  of  human 
life,  and  more  especially  at  numbers  and  speech. 

10 


146    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

Numbers  were  held  to  contain  the  essence  of  things, 
and  the  marvellous  powers  of  four,  seven,  and  ten  re- 
ceived honor  from  all  sects  and  schools.  Words,  too, 
were  regarded  almost  as  a  mystic  power,  distinct  from 
thought,  incorporeal  things  which  made  thought  real 
and  gave  it  expression.  The  mystical  susceptibility 
of  Philo  to  the  power  of  numbers  has  been  noticed  by 
every  critic  and  exaggerated  by  not  a  few;  his  mys- 
tical valuation  of  words  and  speech,  though  far  more 
important  in  his  thought,  has  been  commonly  passed 
over.  The  analysis  which  Greek  writers  made  of  the 
relation  between  the  mental  thought,  the  sound 
which  utters  it,  and  the  mind  which  thinks  it,  was 
invested  with  special  importance  for  the  Jewish 
thinker,  who  transferred  it  from  the  human  to  the 
Divine  sphere.  He  applied  it  to  interpret  the  con- 
stant Biblical  phrases  "  and  God  said  "  or  "  and  God 
spoke/'  according  to  notions  in  which  philosoplry  and 
theology  are  mixed;  and  propounded  a  mystic  ideal- 
ism and  a  mystic  cosmology,  in  which  God's  thought 
or  comprehensive  Word  becomes  the  archetype  of  the 
visible  universe,  His  single  words  the  substantive  uni- 
verse and  the  laws  of  nature.  A  century  before  Philo, 
Aristobulus — assuming  the  genuineness  of  his  Frag- 
ments— wrote : 1  "  We  must  understand  the  Word  of 
God,  not  as  a  spoken  word,  but  as  the  establishment  of 
actual  things,  seeing  that  we  find  throughout  the 
Torah  that  Moses  has  declared  the  whole  creation  to 
be  words  of  God."  Philo,  following  his  predecessor, 

1  Quoted  by  Euseb.,  op.  cit.  XIII.  8. 


PHILO'S  THEOLOGY  147 

says,  "  God  speaks  not  words  but  things/' 1  and,  again, 
commenting  on  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  "  God, 
even  as  He  spake,  at  the  same  moment  created." a 
And  of  human  speech  he  has  this  pretty  conceit  a 
little  before :  "  Into  the  mouth  there  enter  food  and 
drink,  the  perishable  food  of  a  perishable  body;  out 
of  it  issue  words,  immortal  laws  of  an  immortal  soul, 
by  which  rational  life  is  guided/' '  If  human  speech 
is  "  immortal  law,"  much  more  is  the  speech  of  God. 
His  words  are  ideas  seen  by  the  eye  of  the  soul,  not 
heard  by  the  ear.*  The  ten  commandments  given  at 
Sinai  were  "ideas"  of  this  incorporeal  nature,  and 
the  voice  that  Israel  heard  was  no  voice  such  as  men 
possess,  but  the  njoty,  the  Divine  Presence  itself, 
which  exalted  the  multitude.8  Philo  is  here  expand- 
ing and  developing  Jewish  tradition.  In  the  "  Ethics 
of  the  Fathers"  (v)  we  read:  "By  ten  words  was 
the  world  created  " ;  and  in  the  pages  of  the  Midrash 
the  Sip-na,  i.  e.,  the  mystic  emanation  of  the  Deity, 
which  revealed  itself  after  the  spirit  of  prophecy  had 
ceased  to  be  vouchsafed,  is  credited  with  wondrous  and 
varied  powers,  now  revealing  the  Decalogue,  now  per- 
forming some  miracle,  now  appearing  in  a  vision  to 
the  blessed,  now  prophesying  the  future  fate  of  the 
race  to  a  pious  rabbi.  The  fertilizing  stream  of  Greek 

1  De  Decal.  11. 
*De  Mundi  Op.  24. 
•Ibid.  20. 
*  De  Migr.  9. 
6  De  Decal.  11. 


148    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

philosophical  idealism  nourished  the  growth  of  the 
Jewish  pious  imagination,  and  in  the  Logos  of  Philo 
the  fruit  matured.  It  is  idle  to  try  to  formulate  a 
single  definite  notion  of  Philo's  Logos.  For  it  is  the 
expression  of  God  in  all  His  multiple  and  manifold 
activity,  the  instrument  of  creation,  the  seat  of  ideas, 
the  world  of  thought  which  God  first  established  as  the 
model  of  the  visible  universe,  the  guiding  providence, 
the  sower  of  virtue,  the  fount  of  wisdom,  described 
sometimes  in  religious  ecstasy,  sometimes  in  philo- 
sophical metaphysics,  sometimes  in  the  spirit  of  the 
mystical  poet.  Of  his  last  manner  let  us  take  a  speci- 
men singled  out  by  a  Christian  and  a  Jewish  theolo- 
gian as  of  surprising  beauty.  Commenting  on  the 
verse  of  the  Psalmist,  "The  river  of  God  is  filled  with 
water,"  Philo  declares  that  it  is  absurd  to  call  any 
earthly  stream  the  river  of  God. 

"  The  poet  clearly  refers  to  the  Divine  Logos  that  is  full 
of  the  fountain  of  wisdom,  and  is  in  no  part  itself  empty. 
Nay,  it  is  diffused  through  the  universe,  and  is  raised  up 
on  high.  In  another  verse  the  Psalmist  says,  '  The 
course  of  the  river  gladdens  the  city  of  God.'  And  in 
truth  the  continuous  rush  of  the  Divine  Logos  is  borne 
along  with  eager  but  regular  onset,  and  overflows  and 
gladdens  all  things.  In  one  sense  he  calls  the  world  the 
city  of  God,  for  it  has  received  the  '  full  cup '  of  the 
Divine  draught,  and  has  quaffed  a  perpetual,  eternal  joy. 
But  in  another  sense  he  gave  this  name  to  the  soul  of 
the  wise,  wherein  God  is  said  to  walk  as  in  a  city.  And 
who  can  pour  out  the  sacred  measures  of  their  joy  to  the 
blissful  soul  which  holds  out  the  holy  cup,  that  is  its 
own  reason,  save  the  Logos,  the  cupbearer  of  God,  the 


PHILO'S  THEOLOGY  149 

master  of  the  feast?  Nor  is  the  Logos  cupbearer  only, 
but  it  is  itself  the  pure  draught,  itself  the  joy  and  ex- 
ultation, itself  the  pouring  forth  and  the  delight,  itself 
the  ambrosial  philtre  and  potion  of  bliss."1 

Through  the  luxury  of  metaphor  and  imagination 
one  may  discern  the  underlying  thought  of  the  mystic 
writer,  that  the  Logos  is  the  effluence  of  God, 
either  in  the  whole  universe  or  the  individual  man, 
filling  the  one  as  the  other  with  the  Divine  Shekinah. 
It  is  the  link  which  joins  God  and  man,  the  ladder  of 
Jacob's  dream,  which  stretches  from  Heaven  to  earth.2 
That  man  can  attain  the  Divine  state  by  the  help  of 
God's  effluence  was  a  cardinal  thought  of  Philo's; 
this,  indeed,  is  the  form  in  which  he  conceives  the 
Messianic  hope.  God  does  not  come  down  to  earth 
incarnate  in  man's  form,  but  God's  active  influence 
possesses  the  soul  of  man,  and  makes  it  live  with  God, 
and  if  man  be  peculiarly  blessed,  carries  it  up  to  the 
ineffable  Spirit.  Similarly  his  idea  of  the  Messiah  is 
more  spiritual  than  that  of  the  popular  belief.  The 
ascent  of  man  to  God's  height,  not  the  descent  of  God 
to  man's  level,  will  produce  the  age  of  universal  peace. 

There  are  various  degrees  of  the  Divine  influence, 
stretching  from  complete  possession  by  the  Deity 
Himself  to  the  advent  of  single  Divine  thoughts. 
These  Philo  regards  as  M-foi,  words  or  thoughts — • 
for  he  does  not  clearly  distinguish  between  the  two — 
and  he  resolves  the  realistic  angels  of  the  Bible 

1De  Somn.  II.  27. 
2De  Somn.  I.  23. 


150    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

into  this  spiritual  conception.1  Thus  he  says,  "  the 
place''  where  Jacob  alighted  and  had  the  vision 
(Gen.  xxvii.  11)  is  the  symbol  of  the  perfect  contem- 
plation of  God;  the  angels  which  he  saw  ascending 
and  descending  are  the  inferior  light  of  Divine  pre- 
cepts. These  thoughts  are  continually  vouchsafed  to 
all  of  us,  prompting  us  to  noble  actions,  comforting  us 
in  times  of  sadness,  inspiring  lofty  ideas. 

"  Up  and  down  through  the  whole  soul  the  Logoi  of  God 
move  without  end;  when  they  ascend,  drawing  it  up 
with  them,  and  severing  it  from  the  mortal  part,  and 
showing  only  the  vision  of  ideal  things;  but  when  they 
descend,  not  casting  it  down,  but  descending  with  it 
from  humanity  or  compassion  towards  our  race,  so  as  to 
give  assistance  and  help,  in  order  that,  inspiring  what  is 
noble,  they  may  revive  the  soul  which  is  borne  along  on 
the  stream  of  the  body." a 

Conversely,  the  rabbis  taught  that  from  each  word 
that  proceeded  from  the  mouth  of  God  an  angel  was 
created,  as  it  is  said :  "  By  the  word  of  the  Lord 
the  Heavens  were  made,  and  all  the  host  of  them  by 
the  breath  of  His  mouth."  * 

Apart  from  these  sudden  and  occasional  emanations 
of  the  Divine  Spirit,  the  individual  man  has  within 
him  a  permanent  Divine  Logos  by  which  he  may 
direct  his  conduct  aright.  Viewed  in  this  aspect,  the 
Logos,  i.  e.,  the  activity  of  God,  is  conscience,  the 

1Comp.  De  Somn.  II.  11. 
*De  Somn.  I.  22. 
8Comp.  Hagigah  14'. 


PHILO'S  THEOLOGY  151 

Judge  in  the  soul,  which  is  the  true  man  dwelling 
within,1  ruler  and  king,  judge  and  arbiter,  witness 
and  accuser,  correcting  and  restraining.  Rising  to 
holder  personification,  Philo,  who  loves  to  present  a 
spiritual  thought  in  a  concrete  image,  calls  it  the  un- 
defiled  high  priest  in  us.2  In  this  power  he  finds  a 
sure  refutation  of  skepticism;  for  in  virtue  of  the  Di- 
vine voice  man  may  secure  moral  certitude:  and  he 
finds  also  a  philosophical  value  for  popular  supersti- 
tion. It  was  a  common  notion  of  the  pagans  as  well  as 
the  Jews  of  the  time  that  an  intermediate  order  of  be- 
ings passed  between  heaven  and  earth  and  brought 
supernatural  aid  to  men;  and  also  that  a  familiar 
spirit,  or  Daemon,  dwelt  within  the  soul  of  each  man. 
The  finer  spirit  of  Philo  resolves  the  attendant  Da- 
mon and  the  messenger-dasmons  or  angels  into  the 
spiritual  effluences  of  the  one  Deity;  save  for  a  few 
places  where  he  makes  a  pose  of  agreement  with  pop- 
ular notions  and  speaks  of  winged  denizens  of 
Heaven  *  who  descend  to  earth,  he  habitually  expounds 
angels  as  inward  revelations  of  God. 

As  the  revelation  of  God  to  the  individual  is  a  Lo- 
gos, so,  too,  is  his  revelation  to  the  whole  of  mankind. 
It  was  pointed  out  in  the -last  chapter  that  Philo  iden- 
tified the  Torah  with  the  law  of  nature,  and  he  did 
this  by  regarding  it  as  the  Divine  Logos.  The  more 
perfect  emanation  of  God  is  in  one  view  the  power  by 

1  Quod  Deus  26  and  32. 
*De  Confus.  14. 
1  De  Gigant.  2. 


152    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

which  He  directs  the  physical  creation,  in  another  the 
perfect  law  which  He  set  up  as  the  model  of  conduct 
for  His  highest  creatures.  The  rabbis,  indeed,  were 
prone  to  glorify  the  law  as  the  primal  creation  of  God, 
and  the  instrument  of  all  the  later  creations,  ^3 
D'DBMK-OJ  my  rnnn.1  They  speak  of  it  as  the  light, 
the  pillar,  and  the  bond  of  the  universe,  the  model 
whereon  the  architect  looked ; 2  and  Philo  amplifies 
this  simple  poetical  concept  and  develops  it  afresh 
in  the  light  of  Greek  idealistic  and  cosmical  notions/ 
so  that  the  Torah,  as  the  Logos  of  God,  is  equated 
with  the  source  of  all  being,  wisdom,  and  knowledge, 
with  the  ideal  world  which  is  the  archetype  of  the 
material,  and  with  all  the  law  and  order  of  nature. 
And  as  the  Torah  is  the  Logos,  so  also  its  particular 
precepts  are  Logoi. 

It  seems  difficult  to  trace  the  unity  among  all  these 
different  aspects  of  the  "  Word,"  but  in  fact  they  are 
only  different  expressions  of  the  Divine  activity  in 
the  universe.  All  these  are  comprehended  in  the 
Logos,  and  then  again  divided  out  of  it,  so  that  it  is, 
as  it  were,  a  crystal  prism  reflecting  the  light  of  the 
Godhead  in  a  myriad  different  ways.  One  curious 
illustration  of  the  universal  sense  in  which  Philo 
understood  the  Logos  is  his  interpretation  of  the 
manna;  it  is  typical  also  of  his  manner  of  exegesis 

1 "  Ethics  of  the  Fathers  "  III. 

2  Comp.  Schechter,  op.  cit.,  "  The  Law  as  Personified  in 
Literature." 

3  Comp.  L.  A.  III.  73,  De  Somn.  II.  33. 


PHILO'S  THEOLOGY  153 

and  his  habit  of  spiritualizing  the  material.  It  is 
related  in  Exodus  (xvi.  15)  that  when  the  Israelites 
saw  the  heavenly  food  they  exclaimed  Kin  p,  "  What 
is  it?"  and  hence  the  food  obtained  its  name  of 
manna.  Now  the  Greek  Septuagint  word  for  p  is  rt, 
which  means  not  only  "what"  but  "anything." 
Philo  sees  in  the  gift  of  the  heavenly  food  a  symbol 
of  the  inspiration  of  the  chosen  people  by  the  Divine 
Logos,  and  says  that  the  Logos  is  rightly  called 
manna,  i.  e.f  anything,  because  it  is  the  "most  gen- 
eric of  all  things,  and  that  by  which  man  may  be 
nourished." x 

The  central  thought  of  Philo's  system  is  that  God 
is  immanent  in  all  His  work ;  but  it  would  seem  to  him 
sacrilegious  to  apply  to  the  Godhead  itself  this  uni- 
versal, unceasing  activity,  and  so  he  develops  the 
Logos  as  the  most  ideal  attribute  of  the  Deity,  and  the 
sum  of  all  His  immanence  and  effluence.  He  pre- 
ferred the  Logos  to  the  older  Wisdom,  probably  be- 
cause he  could  by  this  conception  bring  his  idea  of 
God  into  closer  relation  with  Greek  philosophical 
notions,  for  already  the  Hellenistic  world  had  come 
spontaneously  to  revere  the  cosmical  Logos.  Only 
Philo  gave  to  the  expression  of  their  physical  and 
metaphysical  speculation  a  religious  warmth  new  to 
it,  when  he  associated  it  with  the  word  uttered  by 
the  personal  God.  Philosophy,  theology,  and  religion 
were  all  joined  and  harmonized  in  his  conception. 

If  we  have  followed  thus  far  the  spirit  of  Philo 

1De  Cong.  31. 


154  PHILO-JUD;ETJS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

aright,  the  Logos  is  only  the  immanent  manifestation 
of  the  One  God,  who  is  both  transcendental  and  im- 
manent, metaphorically,  not  metaphysically,  separate. 
In  other  words,  it  is  the  complete  aspect  of  God  as 
He  reveals  Himself  to  the  world.  Above  it  and  includ- 
ing it  is  the  being  or  essence  of  God,  seen  in  Himself, 
and  not  in  relation  to  His  outward  activity.  But  it 
is  often  suggested  that  the  Logos  appears  to  Philo 
as  a  second  God,  subordinate,  indeed,  to  the  Supreme 
Being,  but  yet  a  separate  personality.  It  is  said,  with 
truth,  that  he  speaks  of  it  as  a  person,  now  calling 
it  king,  priest,  primal  man,  the  first-born  son  of  God, 
even  the  second  God,  and  identifying  it  at  other  times 
with  some  personal  being,  Melchizedek  or  Moses,  and 
apostrophizing  it  as  man's  helper,  guide,  and  advo- 
cate.1 Now  we  have  reason  to  think  that  Gnostic  sects 
of  Jews,  both  in  Alexandria  and  in  Palestine,  were  at 
this  time  tending  towards  the  division  of  the  God- 
head into  separate  powers.  The  heresy  of  "  Minut," 
frequently  mentioned  in  the  Talmud,  consisted  origi- 
nally, in  the  opinion  of  modern  scholars,  of  a  Gnostic 
ditheism  ;*  and  during  the  latter  part  of  the  first  cen- 
tury and  thereafter  we  hear  of  sects  in  Egypt  and 
Syria  which  supported  similar  theories.  Theology 
here  produced  its  fantastic  offspring  theosophy,  and 
the  followers  of  the  esoteric  wisdom  let  their  specula- 
tions carry  them  away  from  the  cardinal  principle  of 

lDe  Confus.  14,  Fragments  I,  L.  A.  III.  23,  Quis  Rer. 
Div.  42,  De  Gigant.  12. 
2  Comp.  Graetz,  "  Gnosticism  and  Judaism,"  pp.  15  ff. 


PHILO'S  THEOLOGY  155 

Judaism.  Influenced  by  Egyptian  speculation,  they 
imagined  an  incarnation  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  and 
in  the  mystical  thought  of  the  day  they  adumbrated 
theories  of  virgin  birth. 

Now  these  prototypes  of  Christian  belief  had  un- 
doubtedly manifested  themselves  at  Alexandria  in 
Philo's  day.  His  treatises  show  traces  of  them,1  and 
the  question  is  whether  he  countenanced  them  or 
tried  to  summon  the  theosophists  of  his  generation 
back  to  the  true  Jewish  conception  of  God.  Certain 
Christian  and  philosophical  critics  of  Philo,  for  whom 
the  wish  was  perhaps  father  to  the  thought,  have 
found  in  Philo's  Logos  a  conception  which  is  at  times 
impersonal,  at  times  personal,  at  times  an  aspect  of 
the  One  God,  and  at  times  a  second  independent  God. 
If  we  take  Philo  literally,  this  certainly  is  the  case. 
But  let  it  be  clearly  understood,  this  interpretation 
not  only  involves  Philo  in  inconsistency,  but  it  utterly 
ruins  and  destroys  his  religious  and  philosophical  sys- 
tem. It  means  that  the  champion  of  Jewish  mono- 
theism wanders  into  a  vague  ditheism.  And  in  view 
of  this,  the  modern  commentators  of  Philo,  notably 
Professor  Drummond/  have  examined  his  words  more 
carefully  and  studied  them  in  relation  to  their  con- 
text ;  and  they  have  shown  how,  judged  in  this  critical 
fashion,  the  personality  of  the  Logos  is  only  figura- 
tive. It  is,  indeed,  probable  that  certain  extreme  pas- 
sages, where  the  Logos  is  presented  most  explicitly  as 

1  Comp.  De  Cherubim  14  and  17,  De  Oigant.  12. 
*  Drummond,  "  Philo-Judaeus  and  the  Jewish  Hellenis- 
tic School,"  vol.  II. 


156    PHILO-JUDyEUS  OF  ALEXAKDKIA 

a  separate  Deity,  are  due  to  Christological  interpola- 
tion. The  Church  Fathers  found  in  the  popular  be- 
lief in  the  Divine  Word  a  remarkable  support  of  the 
Trinity,  and  regarding,  as  they  did,  Philo's  writings 
as  valuable  testimony  to  the  truth  of  Christianity, 
they  had  every  temptation  to  bring  his  passages  about 
the  Logos  still  closer  to  their  ideas.  And  between 
the  first  and  the  fifth  century,  when  we  first  hear  from 
Eusebius  of  manuscripts  of  Philo  at  the  Christian 
monastery  of  Cffisarea — from  which  we  can  trace  our 
texts  in  direct  line — there  was  no  high  standard  in 
dealing  with  ancient  authorities.  It  is  the  Christian 
teachers  who  preserved  Philo,  and  they  preserved  him 
not  as  scholars  but  as  missioners.  The  best  editors 
have  recognized  that  our  text  has  been  interfered  with 
by  evidence-making  scribes,  as  where  a  passage  about 
the  new  Jerusalem  appears,  agreeing  almost  word  for 
word  with  the  picture  of  Eevelations.  Similarly,  not 
a  few  passages  about  the  Logos  are  probably  spurious.1 
Yet,  even  when  we  have  expurgated  our  text  of 
Philo,  there  remain,  it  will  be  said,  numerous  passages 
where  the  Logos  is  spoken  of  and  apostrophized  as  a 
person.  This  is  so,  but  the  conclusion  which  is  drawn, 
that  the  Logos  is  regarded  as  a  second  deitj^,  is  un- 
justifiable. The  Jewish  mind  from  the  time  of  the 
prophets  unto  this  day  has  thought  in  images  and 
metaphors,  and  the  personification  of  the  Logos  is 
only  the  most  striking  instance  of  Philo's  regular 

1De  Somn.  I.  32,  De  Confus.  14,  L.  A.  III.  25,  De  V. 
Mos.  III.  14. 


PHILO'S  THEOLOGY  157 

habit  of  personifying  all  abstract  ideas.  The  alle- 
gorical habit  particularly  conduces  to  this,  for  as  per- 
sons are  constantly  resolved  into  ideas,  so  ideas  come 
to  be  naturally  represented  as  persons.  There  are 
thus  two  steps  in  Philo's  theology,  which  seem  to  some 
extent  to  counteract  each  other;  in  the  first  place,  he 
resolves  the  concrete  physical  expressions  of  the  Bible 
into  spiritual  ideas,  in  the  second  he  portrays  those 
ideas  in  pictorial  language  and  clothes  them  in  per- 
sonifications. The  allegorizer  requires  an  allegorist 
to  interpret  him  aright. 

NOT  must  it  be  forgotten  that  Philo  was  preaching 
spiritual  monotheism  not  only  to  Jews,  but  also  to  the 
Hellenic  world,  for  whom  it  was  a  vast  bound  from 
their  naturalistic  polytheism.  Zealous  as  he  was  for 
the  pure  faith,  he  realized  that  mankind  could  not 
attain  it  directly,  but  must  approach  it  by  conceptions 
of  the  One  God  gradually  increasing  in  profundity 
and  truth.  The  Greek  thinkers  had  approximated 
closest  to  the  Hebraic  God-idea  when  they  conceived 
one  supreme,  immanent  reason  in  the  universe;  and 
Philo,  in  carrying  his  audiences  beyond  this  to  the 
transcendent-immanent  Being,  transformed  the  Greek 
cosmical  concept  into  a  Divine  power  of  the  One  Be- 
ing. For  the  true  believer  this  is  the  stepping-stone 
to  the  perfect  idea.  "  The  Logos,"  he  says,  "  is  the 
God  of  us  imperfect  people,  but  the  true  sages  worship 
the  One  Being/'  *  And,  again,  "  The  imperfect  have 

»L.  A.  III.  73. 


158    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

as  their  law  the  holy  Logos." 1  And  in  this  sense,  it  is 
"intermediate  (peOoptos)  between  God  and  man." J 
What  such  passages  mean  is  that  the  separation  of  the 
Logos  is  a  stage  in  man's  progress  up  to  the  true  idea 
of  God.  It  is  a  second-best  Deity,  so  to  say,  rather 
than  a  second  Deity;  for  those  who  regard  the  Logos 
as  God  have  no  conception  at  all  of  the  perfect  Being 
of  which  it  is  only  the  principal  attribute. 

The  theology  of  Philo  is  characterized  throughout 
by  a  tolerant  and  philosophical  grasp  of  the  difficulty 
of  pure  monotheism,  and  of  the  necessity  of  a  long 
intellectual  searching  before  the  goal  can  be  attained. 
To  declare  the  Unity  of  God  is  simple  enough;  to 
have  a  real  conception  of  it  is  a  very  different  and  a 
very  difficult  thing.  And  Philo's  theology  has  a  two- 
fold aim,  in  which  either  part  complements  the  other. 
It  explains,  on  the  one  hand,  how  God  is  revealed  to 
the  world  through  His  powers  or  attributes  or  modes 
of  activity,  and,  on  the  other,  how  man  can  ascend  to 
an  ecstatic  union  with  the  Real  Being  through  com- 
prehension of  those  powers.  By  the  ideal  ladder  which 
brings  down  God  to  earth,  man  can  climb  again  to 
Heaven.  The  three  chief  rungs  of  the  ladder  are  the 
attributes  of  creation,  and  of  ruling  power,  and  the 
Logos.  The  perfect  unity  of  the  Godhead  is  not,  of 
course,  properly  the  subject  of  attributes,  but  the 
limited  mind  of  man  so  conceives  it  for  its  own  under- 
standing, and  speaks  of  God's  justice,  God's  goodness, 

1  De  Sacrif.  38. 

2  Quis  Rer.  Div.  42. 


PHILO'S  THEOLOGY  159 

God's  wisdom.  These  are,  to  use  philosophical  termi- 
nology, categories  of  the  religious  understanding, 
which  are  finally  resolved  by  the  perfect  sage  in  "  the 
synthetic  apperception  of  Unity." 

Philo  follows  what  may  have  been  a  Hebrew  tradi- 
tion in  explaining  the  two  names  of  God,  "  Elohim  " 
and  "Jehovah,"  as  connoting  His  two  chief  attri- 
butes: (1)  the  creative  or  beneficent,  (2)  the  ruling 
or  judicial,  or,  as  it  is  sometimes  called,  the  law-giving 
power.1  Names,  as  we  know,  were  always  regarded  by 
Philo  as  profound  symbols,  and  naturally  the  names  of 
God  are  of  vital  import;  and  the  twofold  expression 
for  the  Hebrew  Deity,  of  which  the  higher  critics  have 
made  much  destructive  use,  was  noticed  by  the  earli- 
est commentators,  but  made  the  basis  by  them  of  a 
constructive  theology.  The  ruling  and  the  creative 
attributes  of  God  are  outlined  and  contained  in  the 
highest  mode  of  all,  the  Logos,  "the  reason  of  God 
in  every  phase  and  form  of  it  that  is  discoverable  and 
realizable  by  man."  For  by  the  Logos,  God  is  both 
ruler  and  good.*  This  is  the  profound  interpretation 
of  the  story  in  Genesis,  that  "  God  placed  at  the  east 
of  the  garden  of  Eden  the  two  Cherubim  and  a  flam- 
ing sword,  which  turned  every  way  to  keep  the  way  of 
the  tree  of  life"  (Gen.  iv.  24).  The  Cherubim  are 
the  symbols  of  the  powers  of  majesty  and  goodness; 
the  flaming  sword  is  the  Logos ;  "  because,"  says  our 
author  quaintly,  "  all  thought  and  speech  are  the  most 

1  De  Plant.  21. 
2L.  A.  III. 


160    PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDEIA 

mobile  and  the  most  ardent  (t.  e.,  the  most  inten- 
sive) of  things,  and  especially  the  thought  and  speech 
of  the  only  Principle."  * 

To  correspond  with  the  descending  attributes  of 
God  we  have  the  ascending  dispositions  of  man  to- 
wards Him,  fear,  love,  and  thirdly  their  synthesis  in 
loving  knowledge.  When  we  are  in  the  first  stage  of 
religion  we  obey  the  law  in  hope  of  reward  or  fear 
of  punishment;  when  we  have  progressed  higher  in 
thought,  we  worship  God  as  the  good  Creator;  when 
we  have  ascended  one  further  stage,  we  surpass  both 
fear  and  love  in  an  emotion  which  combines  them, 
realizing,  as  Browning  puts  it,  that  "  God  is  law  and 
God  is  love."  In  illustration  of  this  scheme  of  Philo's 
we  may  examine  two  passages  out  of  his  philosophical 
commentary.  In  the  first  he  is  commenting  upon  the 
appearance  of  the  three  angels  to  Abraham  as  he  sat 
outside  his  tent  (Gen.  xviii).8  And,  by  the  way,  it  may 
be  remarked  that  the  Midrash  commenting  on  this 
passage  notes  that  it  begins,  "  And  the  Lord  appeared 
unto  Abraham,"  and  then  continues,  "  And  he  lifted 
up  his  eyes  and  looked,  and,  lo,  three  men  stood  be- 
fore him."  Hence  we  may  learn  that  it  was  really 
the  one  God  who  appeared  to  the  Patriarch,  and  that 
the  three  angels  were  but  a  vision  of  his  mind.  This 
is  the  dominant  note  of  Philo's  interpretation,  but  he 
as  usual  elaborates  the  old  Midrash  philosophically. 

1De  Cherubim  9. 
*De  Abr.  24  and  25. 


PHILO'S  THEOLOGY  161 

"  The  words,"  he  says,  "  are  symbols  of  things  appre- 
hended by  intelligence  alone — the  soul  receives  a  triple 
expression  of  one  being,  of  which  one  is  the  representa- 
tive of  the  actual  existent,  and  the  other  two  are  shad- 
ows, as  it  were,  cast  from  this.  So  it  happens  also  in  the 
physical  world,  for  there  often  occur  two  shadows  of 
bodies  at  rest  or  in  motion.  Let  no  one  suppose,  how- 
ever, that  shadow  is  properly  used  in  relation  to  God. 
It  is  only  a  popular  use  of  words  for  the  clearer  under- 
standing of  our  subject.  The  reality  is  not  so,  but,  as 
one  standing  nearest  to  the  truth  might  say,  the  middle 
one  is  the  Father  of  the  universe,  who  is  called  in  Scrip- 
ture the  '  Self-existent';  and  those  on  either  side  of  Him 
are  the  two  oldest  and  chief  powers,  the  Creative  and 
the  Regal.  The  middle  one,  then,  being  attended  by  the 
others  as  by  a  bodyguard,  presents  to  the  contemplative 
mind  a  mental  image  or  representation  now  of  one  and 
now  of  three;  of  one  whenever  the  soul,  being  properly 
purified  and  perfectly  initiated,  rises  to  the  idea  which  is 
unmingled  and  free  from  limitation,  and  requires  noth- 
ing to  complete  it;  but  of  three  whenever  it  has  not  yet 
been  initiated  into  the  great  mysteries,  and  still  cele- 
brates the  lesser  rites,  unable  to  apprehend  the  Being 
in  itself  without  modification,  but  apprehending  it 
through  its  modes  as  either  creating  or  ruling.  This  is, 
as  the  proverb  says,  a  second-best  course,  but  yet  it  par- 
takes of  godlike  opinion.  But  the  former  does  not  par- 
take of — for  it  is  itself — the  Godlike  opinion,  or  rather 
it  is  truth,  which  is  more  precious  than  all  opinion. 

"  Further,  there  are  three  classes  of  human  character, 
to  each  of  which  one  of  the  three  conceptions  of  God  has 
been  assigned.  The  best  class  goes  with  the  first,  the 
conception  of  the  absolute  Being;  the  next  goes  with 
the  conception  of  Him  as  a  Benefactor,  in  virtue  of  which 
He  is  called  God;  the  third  with  the  conception  of  Him 
as  a  Ruler,  in  virtue  of  which  He  is  called  Lord.  The 
11 


162    PHILO-JUDJ3US  OF  ALEXANDKIA 

noblest  character  serves  Him  who  is  in  all  the  purity  of 
His  absolute  Being;  it  is  attracted  by  no  other  thing  or 
aspect,  but  is  solely  and  intently  devoted  to  the  honor  of 
the  one  and  only  Being;  the  second  is  brought  to  the 
knowledge  of  the  Father  through  His  beneficent  power; 
the  third  through  His  regal  power." 

In  the  second  passage,  which  occurs  in  the  treatise 
on  flight  from  the  world/  Philo  is  allegorizing  the 
law  about  founding  six  cities  of  refuge  (Exodus 
xxxii).  These  are  but  material  symbols  for  the  six 
stages  of  the  ascent  of  the  mind  to  the  pure  God-idea. 
The  chief  city,  the  metropolis,  is  the  Divine  Logos, 
next  come  the  two  powers  already  considered,  and 
then  three  secondary  powers,  the  retributive,  the  law- 
giving,  and  the  prohibitive.  "Very  beautiful  and 
well-fenced  cities  they  are,  worthy  refuges  of  souls 
that  merit  salvation/'  Each  of  these  cities  is  an 
aspect  of  the  religious  mind;  when  it  settles  in  the 
first  it  obeys  the  law  from  fear  of  punishment  and 
thinks  of  God  as  the  Judge;  in  the  second  it  ob- 
serves the  precepts  in  hope  of  reward  and  conceives 
God  as  the  legislator  of  a  fixed  code ;  in  the  next  it  is 
repentant  and  throws  itself  on  God's  grace,  marking 
the  first  step  of  the  spiritual  life.  Then  it  ascends  in 
order  to  the  idea  of  God  as  the  governor  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  the  emotion  which  the  rabbis  called  nxv 
D'Dty,  the  fear  of  Heaven ;  and  to  the  idea  of  God  as  the 
Creator  and  the  universal  Providence,  which  has  as 
its  emotional  reflex  the  love  of  Heaven,  D'Dt? 

1  De  Fuga  18. 


PHILO'S  THEOLOGY  163 

But  even  this,  which  is  the  highest  stage  for  many 
men,  is  not  an  adequate  conception.  Above  it  is  the 
contemplation  of  God,  apart  from  all  manifestations 
in  the  perceptible  world,  in  His  ideal  nature,  the 
Logos,  which  at  once  transcends  and  comprehends  the 
universe.  And  the  attitude  of  this  man  can  be  best  ex- 
pressed perhaps  by  Spinoza's  phrase,  "  the  intellectual 
love  of  God/'  amor  intellectualis  Dei.  The  worship- 
per of  the  Logos  has  grasped  and  has  harmonized  all 
the  manifestations  of  the  Deity;  he  sees  and  honors 
all  things  in  God;  he  comprehends  the  universe  as 
the  perfect  manifestation  of  one  good  Being. 

Is  this  the  highest  point  which  man  can  reach? 
Many  religious  philosophers  have  held  that  it  is,  but 
Philo,  the  mystic,  yearning  to  track  out  God  "be- 
yond the  utmost  bound  of  human  thought,"  imagines 
one  higher  condition.  The  Logos  is  only  the  image 
or  the  shadow  of  the  Godhead.1  Above  it  is  the  one 
perfect  reality,  the  transcendent  Essence.  Now,  man 
cannot  by  any  intellectual  effort  attain  knowledge  of 
the  Infinite  as  He  truly  is,  for  this  is  above  thought. 
But  to  a  few  blessed  mortals  God  of  His  grace  vouch- 
safes a  mystic  vision  of  His  nature.  Thus  Moses,  the 
perfect  hierophant,  had  this  perfect  apprehension,  and 
passed  from  intellectual  love  to  holy  adoration.  And 
the  true  philosopher  has  as  the  goal  of  his  aspirations 
the  heaven-sent  ecstasy,  in  which  he  sees  God  no 
longer  through  His  effects,  or  in  the  modes  of  His 

1 L.  A.  II. 


164    PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDEIA 

activity,  but  through  Himself  in  His  own  essence.  The 
philosopher,  when  he  receives  this  vision  (£x6xTei<i), 
is  possessed  by  the  Shekinah,1  and,  losing  conscious- 
ness of  his  individuality,  becomes  at  one  with  God. 

So  much  for  Philo's  theory  of  man's  upward 
progress.  We  may  add  a  word  about  his  treatment 
of  the  problem  which  troubled  thinkers  in  that 
age,  and  which  has  harassed  theologians  ever  since, 
viz.,  to  show  how  punishment  and  evil  could  be  de- 
rived from  a  God  who  was  all-powerful  and  all- 
good.  The  Gnostics  were  driven  by  the  difficulty  to 
imagine  an  evil  world-power,  which  was  in  inces- 
sant conflict  with  the  Good  God :  and  popular  belief 
had  conjured  up  a  legion  of  subordinate  powers,  who 
took  part  in  the  work  of  creation  and  the  government 
of  the  world.  When  Philo  is  speaking  popularly,  he 
accepts  this  current  theology  and  speaks  also  of  a 
punitive  power  of  God*  (duvafju*;  xoXaffTtxij} ;  but  not 
when  he  is  the  philosopher.  For  then,  in  perfect 
faith,  he  denies  the  absolute  existence  of  evil.  "  It  is 
neither  in  Paradise  nor  indeed  anywhere  whatso- 
ever. "  '  Man,  however,  by  his  free  will  causes  evil  in 
the  human  sphere;  and  when  God  formed  in  man  a 
rational  nature  capable  of  choosing  for  itself,  moral 
evil  became  the  necessary  contrary  of  good.*  More- 
over, the  punitive  activity  of  God,  though  it  seems 

1L.  A.  I.  13,  II.  15,  Quis  Uer.  Div.  53. 

2Comp.  De  Decal.,  ad  fin. 

*L.  A.  I.  20,  De  Fuga  12. 

*De  Mundi  Op.  54,  De  Fuga  11. 


PHILO'S  THEOLOGY  165 

to  cause  suffering  and  misery,  is  in  truth  a  good,  sim- 
ulating evil,  and  if  men  judged  the  universal  process 
as  a  whole,  they  would  find  it  all  good.  The  existence 
of  evil  involves  no  derogation  from  the  perfect  unity 
of  God. 

If  we  have  understood  correctly  Philo's  theology, 
neither  Logos,  nor  subordinate  powers,  nor  angels, 
nor  demons  have  an  objective  existence ;  they  are  mere 
imaginings  of  varying  incompleteness  which  the  lim- 
ited minds  of  men,  "  moving  in  worlds  not  realized," 
make  for  themselves  of  the  one  and  only  true  God. 
Philo's  theology  is  the  philosophical  treatment  of 
Jewish  tradition,  just  as  Philo's  legal  exegesis  is  the 
philosophical  treatment  of  the  Torah.  While  main- 
taining and  striving  to  deepen  the  conception  of 
God's  unity,  he  aims  at  expounding  to  the  reason  how, 
on  the  one  hand,  that  unity  is  revealed  in  the  world 
about  us,  and  how,  on  the  other,  we  may  advance  to 
its  true  comprehension.  It  was,  however,  unfortunate 
that  Philo  expressed  his  theology  in  the  current  lan- 
guage, which  was  vague  and  inexact,  and  adapted  cer- 
tain foreign  theosophical  ideas  to  Judaism;  hence 
succeeding  generations,  paying  regard  to  the  pictorial 
representation  rather  than  to  the  principles  of  his 
thought,  sought  and  found  in  him  evidence  of  theories 
of  Divine  government  to  which  Judaism  was  pre-emi- 
nently opposed.  The  first  chapter  of  the  Fourth  Gos- 
pel shows  that  gradual  process  of  thought  which  finally 
made  the  Logos  doctrine  the  antithesis  of  Judaism. 
In  the  first  verse  we  have  a  thought  which  might  well 


166    PHILO-JUDJSUS  OF  ALEXANDEIA 

have  been  written  by  Philo  himself :  "  In  the  begin- 
ning was  the  Word,  and  the  Word  was  with  God,  and 
the  Word  was  God/'  But  in  the  fourteenth  verse 
there  is  manifest  the  sharp  cleavage :  "  And  the  Word 
was  made  flesh,  and  dwelt  among  us,  and  we  beheld 
his  glory,  the  glory  as  of  the  only  begotten  of  the 
Father,  full  of  grace  and  truth."  There  may  be  a 
fine  spiritual  thought  beneath  the  letter  here,  but  the 
notion  of  the  Incarnation  is  not  Jewish,  nor  philo- 
sophical, nor  Philonic.  Philo's  work  was  made  to 
serve  as  the  guide  of  that  Christian  Gnosticism  which, 
within  the  next  hundred  years,  proclaimed  that  Juda- 
ism was  the  work  of  an  evil  God,  and  that  the  essential 
mission  of  Jesus — the  good  Logos — was  to  dethrone 
Jehovah!  But  though  the  Logos  conception  was 
turned  to  non-Jewish  and  anti-Jewish  purposes,  it 
was  in  Philo  the  offspring  of  a  pure  and  philosophical 
monotheism.  Whatever  the  later  abuse  of  his  teach- 
ing, Philo  constructed  a  theology  which,  though  af- 
fected by  foreign  influences,  was  essentially  true  to 
Judaism;  and  more  than  that,  he  was  the  first  to 
weave  the  Jewish  idea  of  God  into  the  world's 
philosophy. 


VI 


Save  for  a  few  monographs  of  no  great  importance, 
because  of  the  absence  of  original  thought,  Philo's 
works  form  avowedly  an  exegesis  of  the  Bible  and  not 
a  series  of  philosophical  writings.  Nor  must  the 
reader  expect  to  find  an  ordered  system  of  philosophy 
in  his  separate  works,  much  more  than  in  the  writings 
of  the  rabbis.  As  Professor  Caird  says,1  "The  He- 
brew mind  is  intuitive,  imaginative,  incapable  of 
analysis  or  systematic  connection  of  ideas."  •  Philo's 
philosophical  conceptions  lie  scattered  up  and  down 
his  writings,  "  strung  on  the  thread  of  the  Bible  nar- 
rative which  determines  the  sequence  of  his  thoughts." 
Nevertheless,  though  he  has  not  given  us  explicit 
treatises  on  cosmology,  metaphysics,  ethics,  psychol- 
ogy, etc.,  and  though  he  was  incapable  of  close  logical 
thinking,  he  has  treated  all  these  subjects  suggestively 
and  originally  in  the  course  of  his  commentary,  and 
his  readers  may  gather  together  what  he  has  dispersed, 
and  find  a  co-ordinated  body  of  religious  philosophy. 
However  loosely  they  are  set  forth  in  his  treatises,  his 
ideas  are  closely  connected  in  his  mind.  Herein  he 

'"The  Evolution  of  Theology  In  the  Greek  Philos- 
ophers" VIII. 


168    PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDKIA 

differs  from  his  Jewish  predecessors,  for  the  notion  of 
the  old  historians  of  the  Alexandrian  movement,  that 
there  was  a  systematic  Jewish  philosophy  before  Philo, 
does  not  appear  to  have  been  well-founded.  All  that 
Aristeas  and  Aristobulus  and  the  Apocryphal  authors 
had  done  was  to  assimilate  certain  philosophemes  to 
their  religious  ideas;  they  had  not  re-interpreted  the 
whole  system  of  philosophy  from  a  Jewish  point  of 
view  or  traced  an  independent  system,  or  an  eclectic 
doctrine  in  the  Holy  Scriptures.  This  was  the 
achievement  of  Philo.  His  thought  is  not  original  in 
the  sense  of  presenting  a  new  scheme  of  philosophy, 
but  it  is  original  in  the  sense  of  giving  a  fresh  inter- 
pretation to  the  philosophical  ideas  of  his  age  and 
environment.  He  ranges  them  under  a  new  principle, 
puts  them  in  a  new  light,  and  combines  them  in  a  new 
synthesis.  This  again  is  characteristic  of  the  Jewish 
mind.  Intent  on  God,  it  does  not  endeavor  to  make 
its  own  analysis  of  the  universe  by  independent  rea- 
soning, but  it  utilizes  the  systems  of  other  nations 
and  endeavors  to  harmonize  them  with  its  religious 
convictions.  Hence  it  is  that  nearly  all  Jewish  phi- 
losophy appears  to  be  eclectic ;  its  writers  have  ranged 
through  the  fields  of  thought  of  many  schools  and 
culled  flowers  from  each,  which  they  bind  together 
into  a  crown  for  their  religion.  They  do  not,  with  few 
exceptions,  pursue  philosophy  with  the  purpose  of 
widening  the  borders  of  secular  knowledge;  but 
rather  in  order  to  bring  the  light  of  reason  to  illumi- 
nate and  clarify  faith,  to  harmonize  Judaism  with  the 


PHILO  AS  A  PHILOSOPHER          169 

general  culture  of  its  environment,  and  to  revivify  be- 
lief and  ceremony  with  a  new  interpretation.  All  this 
applies  to  our  worthy,  but  at  the  same  time  he  was  a 
philosopher  at  heart,  because  he  believed  that  the 
knowledge  of  God  came  by  contemplation  as  well  as 
by  practice,  and,  further,  because  he  had  a  firm  faith 
in  the  universalism  of  Judaism ;  and  he  believed  that 
this  universal  religion  must  comprehend  all  that  is 
highest  and  truest  in  human  thought.  Like  most 
Jewish  philosophers  he  is  synthetic  rather  than  ana- 
lytic, believing  in  intuition  and  distrusting  the  dis- 
cursive reason,  careless  of  physical  science  and  soaring 
into  religious  metaphysics.  Again,  like  most  Jewish 
philosophers,  he  is  deductive,  starting  with  a  synthesis 
of  all  in  the  Divine  Unity,  and  making  no  fresh  in- 
ductions -*rom  phenomena.  It  has  been  said  that, 
though  Philo  was  a  philosopher  and  a  Jew,  yet  Saadia 
was  the  first  Jewish  philosopher.  But  Philo's  philo- 
sophical ideas  are  in  complete  harmony  with  his  Juda- 
ism; and  if  by  the  criticism  it  is  meant  that  most  of 
the  content  of  his  works  is  based  upon  Greek  models, 
it  is  true  on  the  other  hand  that  the  spirit  which  per- 
vades them  is  essentially  Jewish,  and  that  by  the  new 
force  which  he  breathed  into  it  he  reformed  and  gave 
a  new  direction  to  the  Greek  philosophy  of  his  age. 

Philo's  philosophy  is  certainly  eclectic  in  some  de- 
gree, and  we  find  in  it  ideas  taken  from  the  schools 
of  Plato,  Aristotle,  Pythagoras,  and  the  Stoics.  Its 
fixed  point  was  his  theology,  and  wherever  he  finds 
anything  to  support  this  he  adapts  it  to  his  pur- 


170    PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

pose.  He  approached  philosophy  from  a  position 
opposed  to  that  of  the  Greeks:  they  brought  a  ques- 
tioning and  free  mind  to  the  problems  of  the  uni- 
verse ;  he  comes  full  of  religious  preconceptions.  Yet 
in  this  lies  his  strength  as  well  as  his  limitation,  for 
he  gains  thus  a  point  of  certainty  and  a  clear  end, 
which  other  eclectic  systems  of  the  day  did  not  pos- 
sess. He  welds  together  all  the  different  elements  of 
his  thought  in  the  heat  of  his  passion  for  God.  His 
cosmology  and  his  ontology  are  a  philosophical  expo- 
sition of  the  Jewish  conception  of  God's  relation  to 
the  universe,  his  ethics  and  his  psychology  of  the 
Jewish  conception  of  man's  relation  to  God. 

The  religious  preconceptions  of  Philo  drew  him  to 
Plato  above  all  other  philosophers,  so  that  his 
thought. is  essentially  a  religious  development  of  Pla- 
tonism.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  Philo's  work 
has  a  double  function,  to  interpret  the  Bible  according 
to  Platonic  philosophy  and  to  interpret  Plato  in  the 
spirit  of  the  Bible.  The  agreement  was  not  the  arti- 
ficial production  of  the  commentator,  for  in  truth 
Plato  was  in  sympathy  with  the  religious  conscience 
as  a  whole.  The  contrast  between  Hellenism  and  He- 
braism is  true,  if  we  restrict  it  to  the  average  mind  of 
the  two  races.  The  one  is  intent  on  things  secular, 
the  other  on  God.  But  the  greatest  genius  of  the 
Hellenic  race,  influenced  perhaps  by  contact  with  Ori- 
ental peoples,  possessed,  in  a  remarkable  degree,  the 
Hebraic  spirit,  which  is  zealous  for  God  and  makes 
for  righteousness.  Plato  was  not  only  a  great  phi- 


PHILO  AS  A  PHILOSOPHER          171 

losopher,  but  also  a  great  theologian,  a  great  religious 
reformer,  and  a  great  prophet,  the  most  perfectly  de- 
veloped mind  which  the  world,  ancient  or  modern, 
has  known.  His  "  Ideas,"  which  are  the  archetypes 
of  sensible  things,  were  not  only  logical  concepts  but 
also  a  kingdom  of  Heaven  connected  with  the  human 
individual  by  the  Divine  soul.  And  as  he  grew  older, 
so  his  religious  feeling  intensified,  and  he  trans- 
lated his  philosophy  into  theology  and  positive 
religion.  Platonism,  it  has  been  well  said,  is  a  temper 
as  much  as  a  doctrine ;  it  is  the  spirit  that  turns  from 
the  earth  to  Heaven,  from  creation  to  God.  In  his 
last  work,  "  The  Laws,"  wherein  he  designs  a  theo- 
cratic state,  which  has  striking  points  of  resemblance 
with  the  Jewish  polity,  he  says :  "  The  conclusion  of 
the  matter  is  this,  which  is  the  fairest  and  truest  of 
all  sayings,  that  for  the  good  man  to  sacrifice  and 
hold  converse  with  the  Deity  by  means  of  prayers  and 
service  of  every  kind  is  the  noblest  thing  of  all  and 
the  most  conducive  to  a  happy  life,  and  above  all 
things  fitting/'1 

This  is  typical  of  Plato's  attitude  towards  life  in 
his  old  age;  and  further,  his  metaphysical  system  of 
monistic  idealism  is  the  most  remarkable  approach 
to  Hebrew  monotheism  which  the  Greek  world  made. 
The  Patristic  writers  in  the  first  centuries  of  the 
Christian  era  were  so  struck  by  this  Hebraism  in  the 
Greek  thinker,  that  they  attributed  it  to  direct  borrow- 

1  Plato,  "  Laws  "  718. 


172    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

ing.  Aristobulus  had  written  of  a  translation  of  the 
Pentateuch  older  than  the  Septuagint,  which  Plato 
was  supposed  to  have  studied.  Clement  called  him  the 
Hebrew  philosopher,  Origen  and  Augustine  comment 
on  his  agreement  with  Genesis,  and  think  that  when 
he  was  in  Egypt  he  listened  to  Jeremiah.1  Eusebius 
worked  out  in  detail  his  correspondences  with  the 
Bible.  Some  early  neo-Platonist,  perhaps  Numenius, 
declared  that  Plato  was  only  the  Attic  Moses ;  and  in 
more  modern  times  the  Cambridge  Platonists  of  the 
sixteenth  century  harbored  similar  ideas,  and  Nietz- 
sche spoke  bitterly  of  the  day  when  "  Plato  went  to 
school  with  the  Jews  in  Egypt." 

Of  Philo,  then,  we  may  say,  as  Montaigne  said  of 
himself,  that  he  was  a  Platonist  before  he  knew  who 
Plato  was.  Yet  he  was  the  first  Hellenistic  Jew  who 
perceived  the  fundamental  harmony  between  the 
philosophers  idealism  and  Jewish  monotheism,  and 
he  was  the  first  important  commentator  of  Plato  who 
developed  the  religious  teaching  of  his  master  into  a 
powerful  spiritual  force. 

It  is  true  that  the  seeds  of  neo-Platonism,  i.  e.,  the 
religious  re-interpretation  of  Platonism  under  the 
influence  of  Eastern  thought,  had  been  sown  already ; 
and  Philo  must  have  received  from  his  environment 
to  some  extent  the  mystical  version  of  the  master's 
system,  with  its  goal  of  ecstatic  union  with  God,  and 
its  tendency  to  asceticism  as  a  means  thereto.  But 
the  earlier  products  of  the  movement  had  been  crude, 

1  Comp.  Bk.  12  of  the  Prcep.  Evang. 


PHILO  AS  A  PHILOSOPHER          173 

and  had  lacked  a  powerful  moving  spirit.  This  was 
provided  by  Philo  when  he  introduced  his  overmas- 
tering conception  of  God.  The  popular  saying, 
"  Either  Plato  Philonizes  or  Philo  Platonizes  " *  con- 
tains a  deep  truth  in  its  first  as  well  as  in  its  second 
part.  It  not  only  marks  the  likeness  in  style  of  the 
two  writers,  but  it  suggests  that  Philo,  on  the  one 
hand,  made  fruitful  the  religious  germ  in  Plato's 
teaching  by  his  Hebraism,  and,  on  the  other,  nour- 
ished the  philosophical  seed  in  Judaism  by  his  Plato- 
nism.  Plato's  teaching  falls  into  two  main  classes, 
the  dialectical  and  the  mythical,  and  it  is  with  the 
latter  that  Philo  is  in  specially  close  connection.  For 
in  his  myths  Plato  tries  to  achieve  a  synthesis  by 
imaginative  flight  where  he  had  failed  by  discursive 
reason.  He  unifies  experience  by  striking  intuitions, 
something  in  the  spirit  of  a  Hebrew  prophet.  More- 
over his  style,  as  well  as  his  thought,  has  here  affinity 
with  Jewish  modes  of  thought.  As  Zeller  says,  speak- 
ing of  the  myths :  "  From  the  first,  in  the  act  of  pro- 
ducing his  work  he  thinks  in  images.  They  mark  the 
point  where  it  becomes  evident  that  he  cannot  be 
wholly  a  philosopher  because  he  is  still  too  much  of 
a  poet."  And  this  is  true  of  all  Philo's  writings,  and 
to  generalize  somewhat  widely,  of  most  Jewish  phi- 
losophy. In  "  The  Timseus,"  particularly,  Plato, 
throughout,  is  the  poet-philosopher,  writing  imagina- 
tive myths,  which  present  pictorially  an  idealistic 
scheme  of  the  universe;  and  "The  Timaeus"  is  for 

1  Quoted  by  Suidas,  s.  v.  Philo. 


174    PHILO-JUMXJS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

Philo,   after   the   Bible,   the   most   authoritative   of 
books,  the  source  of  his  chief  philosophical  ideas. 

The  dominant  philosophical  principle  of  Plato  is 
what  is  known  as  the  Theory  of  Ideas.  He  imagined 
a  world  of  real  existences,  invisible,  incorporeal, 
eternal,  grasped  only  by  thought,  prior  to  the  objects 
of  the  physical  universe,  and  the  models  or  archetypes 
of  them.  In  "  The  Timasus,"  which  is  a  system  of  cos- 
mology at  once  religious  and  metaphysical,  the 
"  Ideas  "  are  represented  as  the  thoughts  of  the  one 
Supreme  Mind,  the  intermediate  powers  by  which  the 
Supreme  Unity,  known  as  the  "  Idea  of  the  Good,"  or 
"  the  Creator/'  evolves  the  material  universe.  Thus  the 
universe  is  seen  as  the  manifestation  of  one  Beneficent 
Spirit,  who  brings  it  into  existence  and  rules  over  it 
through  His  "  ideal  "  thoughts.  Philo  adopts  com- 
pletely and  uncritically  this  theory  of  transcendental 
ideas  in  his  philosophical  exegesis  of  the  cosmogony 
in  Genesis.  "  Without  an  incorporeal  archetype  God 
brings  no  simple  thing  to  fulfilment."1  There  is  an 
idea  of  stars,  of  grass,  of  man,  of  virtue,  of  music. 
And  the  Platonic  conception  receives  a  religious  sanc- 
tion. The  ideas  are  a  necessary  step  between  God  and 
the  material  universe,  and  those  who  deny  them  throw 
all  things  into  confusion.2  "  God  would  not  touch  mat- 
ter Himself,  but  He  did  not  grudge  a  share  of  His  na- 
ture to  it  through  His  powers,  of  which  the  true  name 

1  De  Mundi  Op.  43. 

*De  Victimis  II.  260-262. 


PHILO  AS  A  PHILOSOPHER          175 

is  ideas/'  We  have  already  noticed1  how  ingeniously 
Philo  deduces  the  Theory  of  Ideas  from  the  Biblical 
account  of  the  creation,  and  associates  it  with  the 
Hebraic  conception  of  the  ministerial  Wisdom  and 
Word.  He,  however,  gives  a  new  direction  to  the 
Platonic  theory,  owing  to  his  Hebraic  conception  of 
God.  The  ideas  with  him  are  not  the  thoughts  of  an 
impersonal  mind,  but  the  emanations  of  a  personal, 
volitional  Deity.  Keeping  close  to  Jewish  tradition, 
he  says  that  they  are  the  words  of  the  Deity  speaking. 
As  human  speech  consists  of  incorporeal  ideas,  which 
produce  an  effect  upon  the  minds  of  others,  so  the 
Divine  speech  is  a  pattern  of  incorporeal  ideas  which 
impress  themselves  upon  a  formless  void,  and  so 
create  the  material  world.2  In  this  way  Philo  asso- 
ciates his  cosmology  with  his  theology.  The  creative 
"  Ideas "  are  equated  collectively  with  the  Supreme 
Logos,3  individually  with  the  Logoi  which  represent 
God's  particular  activities.  Thus  the  Logos  repre- 
sents the  whole  ideal  or  noetic  world,  "  the  kingdom 
of  Heaven  " ;  and  it  is  in  this  metaphysical  sense  that 
the  Logos  is  the  first  creation,  "  the  first-born  son  of 
God,"  prior  to  the  physical  universe,  which  is  His 
grandson.  The  whole  universe  is  thus  seen  as  the 
orderly  manifestation  of  one  principle.  Philo,  ex- 
panding a  favorite  image  of  the  Haggadah,  illus- 
trates God's  creation  by  the  simile  of  a  king  founding 
a  city.  "  He  gets  to  him  an  architect,  who  first  de- 

1  Oomp.  p.  81,  above. 

*  De  Kacrif.  24,  Quod  Bet.  24.  « De  Mundi  Op.  24 


176    PHILO-JTJD^US  OF  ALEXAKDKIA 

signs  in  his  mind  the  parts  of  the  perfect  city,  and 
then,  looking  continually  to  his  model,  hegins  to  con- 
struct the  city  of  stones  and  wood.  So  when  God 
resolved  to  found  the  world-city,  He  first  brought  its 
form  into  mind,  and  using  this  as  a  model  he  com- 
pleted the  visible  world."  * 

The  theory  of  religious  idealism  is  the  centre  of 
Philo's  philosophy,  and  provides  the  basis  of  his  ex- 
planation of  the  material  universe.  Physics,  indeed, 
he  considered  of  small  account,  because  he  believed 
there  could  be  no  certainty  in  such  speculations.1  His 
mind  was  utterly  unscientific;  but  as  a  religious 
philosopher  he  found  it  necessary  to  give  a  theory  of 
the  creation.  Jewish  dogma  held  that  the  world  had 
been  called  into  being  out  of  nothing;  the  Greek 
philosophers  repudiated  such  an  idea,  and  held  that 
creation  must  be  the  result  of  a  reasonable  process; 
Aristotle  had  imagined  that  matter  was  a  separately 
existent  principle  with  mind,  and  that  the  world  was 
eternal ;  and  the  Stoics  held  that  matter  was  the  sub- 
stance of  all  things,  including  the  pantheistic  power 
itself : 

"  All  are  but  parts  of  one  stupendous  whole, 
Whose  body  nature  Is,  and  God  the  soul." 

Philo  impugns  both  these  theories,8  the  one  because  it 
denies  the  creative  power  of  God,  the  other  because 
it  confuses  the  Creator  with  His  creation.  He  looked 

1  De  Mundi  Op.  4. 

-  De  Somn.  I.  4. 

*De  Victimis  II.  260. 


PHILO  AS  A  PHILOSOPHEK          177 

for  a  system  which  should  satisfy  at  once  the  Jewish 
notion  that  the  world  was  brought  out  of  nothing  by 
the  will  of  God,  and  the  philosophical  concept  that 
God  is  all  reality ;  and  he  found  in  Plato's  idealism  a 
view  of  the  creation  which  he  could  harmonize  with 
the  religious  view.  Plato  declared  that  the  material 
world  had  been  created  out  of  the  Non-Ens  (/^  ov)> 
t.  e.,  that  which  has  no  real  existence.  He  conceived 
space  and  matter  as  the  mere  passive  receptacle  of 
form,  which  is  nothing  till  the  form  has  given  it 
quality.  Though  Philo's  language  is  vague,  this 
seems  to  be  his  view  when  he  is  speaking  philosophi- 
cally. It  is,  perhaps,  a  slight  deviation  from  the 
earlier  religious  standpoint  of  the  Jews,  which  looks 
to  a  direct  and  deliberate  creation  of  the  world- 
stuff,  rather  than  to  the  informing  of  space  by  spirit, 
and  regards  the  world  as  separate  from  God,  and 
not  as  a  manifestation  of  His  being.  But  the  more 
philosophical  conception  appears  likewise  in  the  Wis- 
dom of  Solomon.  "  For  Thine  all-powerful  hand 
that  created  the  world  out  of  formless  matter,"  says 
the  author  (xi.  17),  establishing  before  Philo  the 
compromise  between  two  competing  influences  in  his 
mind.  More  emphatically  Philo  rejects  the  notion 
of  creation  in  time.1  Time,  he  says,  came  into  being 
after  God  had  made  the  universe,  and  has  no  mean- 
ing for  the  Divine  Ruler,  whose  life  is  in  the  eternal 
present. 

1  Quod  Deus  6,  De  Post.  C.  5. 
12 


178    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

Summing  up,  we  may  say  that  Philo  regards  the 
universe  as  the  image  of  the  Divine  manifestation  or 
evolution  in  thought  produced  by  His  beneficent  will ; 
and  this  view  is  true  to  the  religious  standpoint  of 
traditional  Judaism  in  spirit  if  not  in  letter. 

In  his  conception  of  the  human  soul,  Philo  again 
harmonizes  the  simple  Jewish  notion  with  the  devel- 
oped Greek  psychology  by  means  of  the  Platonic 
idealism.  The  soul  in  the  Bible  is  the  breath  of  God ; 
in  Plato  it  is  an  Idea  incarnate,  represented  in  "  The 
Timaeus  "  as  a  particle  of  the  Supreme  Mind.  Philo, 
following  the  psychology  of  his  age,  divides  the  soul 
into  a  higher  and  a  lower  part:  (1)  the  Nous;  (2)  the 
vital  functions,  which  include  the  senses.  He  lays 
all  the  stress  upon  the  former,  which  gives  man  his 
kinship  with  God  and  the  ideal  world,  while  the  other 
part  is  the  necessary  result  of  its  incarnation  in  the 
body.  He  variously  describes  the  Nous  as  an  insep- 
arable fragment  of  the  Divine  soul,  a  Divine  breath 
which  God  inspires  into  each  body,  a  reflection,  an 
impression,  or  an  image  of  the  blessed  Logos,  sealed 
with  its  stamp.1  Following  the  Platonic  conception, 
Philo  occasionally  speaks  of  the  Divine  soul  as  having 
a  prenatal  existence,8  holding,  as  the  English  poet  put 
it,  that 

"  The  soul  that  rises  with  us,  our  life's  star, 

Hath  had  elsewhere  its  setting 
And  cometh  from  afar." 

1  Quod  Det.  24,  De  Mundi  Op.  45  and  51. 
*L.  A.  I.  32,  De  Confus.  27. 


PHILO  AS  A  PHILOSOPHER          179 

Here,  too,  he  follows  an  older  Jewish-Hellenistic  tra- 
dition, which  appears  in  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon 
(viii.  19  and  20),  where  it  is  written:  "  A  good  soul 
fell  to  my  lot.  Nay  rather,  being  good,  I  came  into 
a  body  undefiled."  The  Nous  is  in  fact  the  god 
within,  and  it  bears  to  the  microcosm  Man  the  rela- 
tion which  the  infinite  God  bears  to  the  macrocosm.1 
Indeed,  it  is  the  Logos  descended  from  above,  but 
yearning  to  return  to  its  true  abode.  Thus  Philo 
sings  its  Divine  nature: 

"  It  is  unseen,  but  sees  all  things:  its  essence  is  un- 
known, but  it  comprehends  the  essence  of  all  things. 
And  by  arts  and  sciences  it  makes  for  itself  many  roads 
and  ways,  and  traverses  sea  and  land,  searching  out  all 
things  within  them.  And  it  soars  aloft  on  wings,  and 
when  it  has  investigated  the  sky  and  its  changes  it  is 
borne  upwards  towards  the  aether  and  the  revolutions  of 
the  heavens.  It  follows  the  stars  in  their  orbits,  and 
passing  the  sensible  it  yearns  for  the  intelligible  world." 

The  Nous  is  the  king  of  the  whole  organism,  the 
governing  and  unifying  power,  and  hence  is  often 
called  the  man  himself.  The  senses,  resembling  the 
powers  of  God,  are  only  the  bodyguard,  subordinate 
instruments,  and  inferior  modes  of  the  Divine  part.* 
So  Philo  explains  that  all  our  faculties  are  derived 
from  the  Divine  principle,  and  he  draws  the  moral 
lesson  that  our  true  function  is  to  bend  them  all  to 
the  Divine  service,  so  as  to  foster  our  noblest  part. 
The  aim  of  the  good  man  is  to  bring  the  god  within 

1  De  Mon.  II.  214,  De  Mundi  Op.  I.  16. 

*De  Mundi  Op.  22  and  48,  L.  A.  I.  13  and  II.  12  ff. 


180    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDKIA 

him  into  union  with  the  God  without,  and  to  this  end 
he  must  avoid  the  life  of  the  senses,1  which  mars  the 
Divine  Xous,  and  may  entirely  crush  it.  The  Divine 
soul,  as  it  had  a  life  before  birth,  so  also  has  a  life 
after  death;  for  what  is  Divine  cannot  perish.  Im- 
mortality is  man's  most  splendid  hope.  If  the  Di- 
vine Presence  fills  him  with  a  mystic  ecstasy,  he  has, 
indeed,  attained  it  upon  this  earth,  but  this  bliss  is 
only  for  the  very  blessed  sage;  and  he,  too,  looks  for- 
ward to  the  more  lasting  union  with  the  Godhead 
after  this  terrestrial  life  is  over.*  True  at  once  to 
the  principles  of  Platonism  and  Judaism,  Philo  ad- 
mits no  anthropomorphic  conception  of  Heaven  or  of 
Hell.  He  is  convinced  that  there  is  a  life  hereafter, 
and  finds  in  the  story  of  Enoch  the  Biblical  symbol 
thereof,'  but  he  does  not  speculate  about  the  nature 
of  the  Divine  reward.  The  pious  are  taken  up  to 
God,  he  says,  and  live  forever,4  communing  alone  with 
the  Alone.8  The  unrighteous  souls,  Philo  sometimes 
suggests,  in  accordance  with  current  Pythagorean 
ideas,  are  reincarnated  according  to  a  system  of  trans- 
migration within  the  human  species  (itahyyevetfia) .' 
Yet  the  sinner  suffers  his  full  doom  on  earth.  The 
true  Hades  is  the  life  of  the  wicked  man  who  has  not 

'De  Sacrif.  32. 

8  De  Plant.  9. 

8  Quaestiones  in  Gen.  II.  59. 

4  De  Fuga  6. 

*  Quaestiones  in  Gen.  IV.  140. 

« De  Cherubim  32. 


PHILO  AS  A  PHILOSOPHER          181 

repented,  exposed  to  vengeance,  with  uncleansed  guilt, 
obnoxious  to  every  curse.1  And  the  Divine  punish- 
ment is  to  live  always  dying,  to  endure  death  death- 
less and  unending,  the  death  of  the  soul.8 

The  Divine  Nous  constitutes  the  true  nature  of 
man;  Philo,  however,  insists  with  almost  wearisome 
repetition,  that  the  god  within  us  has  no  power  in. 
itself,  and  depends  entirely  on  the  grace  and  inspira- 
tion of  God  without  for  knowledge,  virtue,  and  happi- 
ness.' The  Stoic  dogma,  that  the  wise  man  is  per- 
fectly independent  and  self-contained  (aordpx^)  ap- 
pears to  him  as  a  wicked  blasphemy.  "Those  who 
make  God  the  indirect,  and  the  mind  the  direct  cause 
are  guilty  of  impiety,  for  we  are  the  instruments 
through  which  particular  activities  are  developed, 
but  He  who  gives  the  impulse  to  the  powers  of  the 
body  and  the  soul  is  the  Creator  by  whom  all  things 
are  moved/' 4  All  thought-functions,  memory,  rea- 
soning, intuition,  are  referred  directly  to  Divine  in- 
spiration, which  is  in  Platonic  terminology  the  illumi- 
nation of  the  mind  by  the  ideas.  Thus,  finally,  all 
human  activity  is  referred  back  to  God. 

This  guiding  principle  determines  Philo's  attitude 
to  knowledge,  involving,  as  it  does,  that  we  only  know 
by  Divine  inspiration,  or,  as  he  says,  by  the  imma- 

1L.  A.  I.  15. 

'L.  A.  II.  25. 

"L.  A.  I.  11  ff.,  II.  12-14. 

4De  Cherubim  35. 


182    PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

nence  of  the  Logoi.1  The  possibility  of  knowledge 
was  one  of  the  burning  questions  of  the  age,  and  it 
was  the  failure  of  the  old  dogmatic  schools  to  answer 
it  which  led  to  a  great  religious  movement  in  Greek 
philosophy.  How  can  man  attain  to  true  knowledge, 
it  was  asked,  about  the  universe,  seeing  that  percep- 
tions vary  with  each  individual,  and  of  conceptions 
we  have  no  certain  standard?  The  old  Hebrew  at- 
titude to  this  question  is  expressed  by  the  verse  of  the 
Psalmist:  "The  heavens  are  the  heavens  of  the 
Lord,  but  the  earth  hath  He  given  to  the  sons  of 
men"  (Psalm  cxv),  which  implies  that  man  must 
not  try  to  penetrate  the  secrets  of  the  universe.  Philo 
is  sufficiently  a  philosopher  to  desire  knowledge  about 
things  Divine  and  human,  but  at  the  same  time  he 
has  a  complete  distrust  in  the  powers  of  human  sense 
and  human  reason.  About  the  physical  universe  he  is 
frankly  a  skeptic/  but  his  religious  faith  leads  him  to 
hold  that  God  vouchsafes  to  man  some  knowledge  of 
Himself  and  of  the  proper  way  of  life,  i.  e,.,  ethics. 
"Man  knows  all  things  in  God."1  Plato  similarly 
had  despaired  of  knowledge  of  the  physical  world, 
and  had  turned  to  the  heavenly  ideas  as  the  true  ob- 
ject of  thought.  Moreover,  in  his  early  period,  while 
his  theory  was  still  poetical  and  mystical,  he  had  con- 
ceived that  knowledge  was  made  possible  in  the  sub- 

1De  Somn.  I.  12. 
*De  Somn.  I.  4. 
1  De  Plant.  1. 


PHILO  AS  A  PHILOSOPHER          183 

ject,  by  the  entrance  of  "  forms,"  or  emanations,  from 
the  ideas.  This  theory  Philo  adapts  to  his  Jewish 
outlook.  Like  Plato,  he  turns  away  from  the  physical 
to  the  ideal  world,1  and  he  regards  the  ideas  of  wis- 
dom, virtue,  bravery,  etc.,  which  are  theologically 
powers  of  God,  as  continually  sending  forth  Logoi, 
forms  or  forces  (the  angels  of  popular  belief),  to  in- 
form and  enlighten  our  minds.  Throughout,  God  is 
the  cause  of  all  knowledge  as  well  as  of  being,  for  these 
effluences  are  but  an  expression  of  God's  activity.  In 
Philo's  theory,  object  and  subject  are  really  one. 
What  can  be  known  are  the  modes  or  attributes  of 
God,  which  philosophically  are  "  Ideas  " ;  what  knows 
is  the  emanation  of  the  Idea,  which  God  sends  into 
the  human  soul  that  is  prepared  to  receive  it  by  pious 
contemplation.  "  Through  the  heavenly  Wisdom,  wis- 
dom is  seen,  for  wisdom  sees  itself/'  "  Through  God, 
God  is  known,  for  He  is  His  own  light." ! 

Thus  all  knowledge  is  intuition,  and  man's  function 
is  not  so  much  to  reason  as  to  lead  a  life  of  piety  and 
contemplate  the  Divine  work  in  the  hope  of  being 
blessed  with  inspiration.  It  would  be  a  mistake,  how- 
ever, to  take  Philo's  words  quite  literally.  He  does 
not  deny  the  need  of  human  effort  and  striving  for 
knowledge ;  for  the  Divine  influence  is  not  vouchsafed 
till  we  have  prepared  for  it  and  consecrated  all  our 
faculties  to  God.  But,  devout  mystic  as  he  is, 

1  Quod  Det.  31. 

*  De  Migr.  8,  De  Spec.  Leg.  I.  9. 


184    PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

he  ascribes  every  consummation  to  the  direct  help  of 
the  Deity.  "  The  mind  is  the  cause  of  nothing,  but 
rather  the  Deity,  who  is  prior  to  mind,  generates 
thought." 1  The  Greek  philosopher  had  ascribed  the 
final  synthesis  of  knowledge  to  a  superhuman  force. 
Philo  ascribes  to  God  all  the  intermediate  steps  from 
sense-perception.  It  may  be  admitted  that  his  passive 
notion  of  philosophy  involves  the  abandonment  of  the 
Greek  ideal,  the  eager  searching  of  Plato  after  truth. 
He  lived  in  an  age  in  which,  through  loss  of  intellec- 
tual power,  man  had  come  to  despair  of  the  attain- 
ment of  knowledge  by  human  effort,  and  to  rely 
entirely  upon  supernatural  means,  Divine  revelations, 
visions,  and  the  like.  It  is  consistent  with  his  whole 
position  that  the  crown  of  life  is  represented,  not  as 
an  intellectual  state,  but  as  a  superhuman  ecstasy  of 
the  Nous,  wherein  it  is  freed  not  only  from  the  body 
but  from  the  rest  of  the  soul,  and  is,  so  to  say,  led  out 
of  itself.'  He  comments  on  the  verse,  "  And  the  sun 
went  down  and  a  deep  sleep  fell  on  Abraham  "  (Gen. 
xv.  12).  "When  the  Divine  light,"  he  says,  "shines 
upon  the  mortal  soul,  the  mortal  light  sinks,  and  our 
reason  is  driven  out  at  the  approach  of  the  Divine 
spirit." !  This  is  the  Alexandrian  interpretation  of 
nyiv  and  n«nj,  and  though  it  is  much  affected  by 
Greek  mystical  ideas,  yet  at  the  same  time  it  is  broadly 
true  to  the  spirit  of  Jewish  mysticism,  as  we  see  it 

1L.  A.  I.  13. 

2L.  A.  III.  13,  14. 

3  Quis  Rer.  Div.  53. 


PHILO  AS  A  PHILOSOPHEK          185 

presented  in  writers  of  all  ages,  and  as  the  Psalmist 
expressed  it,  "  to  abide  under  the  shadow  of  the  Al- 
mighty." 

Philo's  ethics,  like  the  rest  of  his  philosophy,  ex- 
hibits the  transfusion  of  Greek  ideas  with  his  Hebrew 
spirit.  The  Greek  philosophers  had  evolved  a  rational 
plan  of  life,  while  the  Jewish  teachers  were  impreg- 
nated with  burning  ardor  for  the  living  God;  and 
Philo  brings  the  two  things  together,  making  ethics 
dependent  on  religion.  The  Stoics,  who  were  the 
most  powerful  school  of  his  day,  regarded  as  the  ideal 
of  goodness  life  according  to  unbending  reason  and 
in  complete  independence  of  God  or  man.  Philo 
understands  God  as  a  personal  power  making  for 
righteousness,  and  man's  excellence,  accordingly, 
which  is  likeness  to  God,  is  piety  and  charity.1  Above 
all  he  insists  upon  Faith  (7K<mc),  and  he  defines 
virtue  as  a  condition  of  soul  which  fixes  its  hopes 
upon  the  truly  Existent  God.  The  Stoics  also  pro- 
fessed to  honor  faith  or  confidence  above  all  things, 
but  the  virtue  which  they  meant  was  reliance  upon 
man's  own  powers.  Philo's  virtue  is  almost  the  con- 
verse of  this.  Man  must  feel  completely  dependent 
upon  God,  and  his  proper  attitude  is  humility  and 
resignation.  So  only  can  he  receive  within  his  soul 
the  seed  of  goodness,  and  finally  the  Divine  Logos." 
Yet  at  the  same  time  Philo  remains  loyal  to  the  Jew- 

1  De  Mundi  Op.  54. 
3De  Abr.  31. 


186    PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDEIA 

ish  ideal  of  conduct:  faith  without  works  is  empty, 
and,  as  he  puts  it,  "The  true-born  goods  are  faith 
and  consistency  of  word  and  action/'  * 

The  attainment  of  the  highest  excellence  demands 
severe  discipline,  save  for  those  few  blessed  souls 
whom  God  perfects  without  any  effort  on  their  part. 
The  rest  can  only  secure  self-realization  by  self-re- 
nunciation; they  must  avoid  the  bodily  passions  and 
bodily  lusts.2  At  times  the  Divine  enthusiasm  causes 
Philo,  like  many  a  Jewish  saint  and  like  his  master 
Plato,  to  scorn  all  bodily  limitations  and  recommend 
"insensibility"  (fadOeia)*  by  which  he  means  that 
man  should  crush  his  physical  desires  and  repress 
his  feelings.  Not  that  the  good  life  seems  to  him 
to  imply  absence  of  pleasure.  On  the  contrary,  it 
is  filled  with  the  purest  of  joy,  for  when  man  rises 
to  the  love  of  God  "in  calm  of  mind,  all  passion 
spent,"  then  and  then  alone  has  he  tasted  true  joy- 
ousness.  The  symbol  of  this  bliss  is  Isaac  (prtt'), 
the  laughter  of  the  soul. 

It  was  noticed  in  the  second  chapter  that  Philo 
modified  his  ethical  ideas  during  his  life.  In  the 
earlier  period  he  insists  more  strongly  on  the  need  of 
ascetic  self-denial,  and  has  almost  a  horror  of  the 
world.  Maturer  experience,  however,  taught  him 
that  man  is  made  for  this  world,  and  that  a  wise  use 
of  its  goods  was  a  surer  path  to  happiness  and  to 

1  DC  Fuga  27. 

>L.  A.  I.  32,  II.  25. 

"Comp.  L.  A.  III.  45. 


PHILO  AS  A  PHILOSOPHER          187 

God  than  flight  from  all  temptations.  In  his  later 
writings,  therefore,  he  exhibits  a  striking  moderation. 
He  reproaches  the  ascetics  for  their  "  savage  enthusi- 
asm,"1 probably  hinting  at  the  extreme  sects  of  the 
Essenes  and  the  Therapeutae.  "  Those  who  follow  a 
gentler  wisdom  seek  after  God,  but  at  the  same  time 
do  not  despise  human  things." 

"  Truth  will  properly  blame  those  who  without  dis- 
crimination shun  all  concern  with  the  life  of  the  State, 
and  say  that  they  despise  the  acquisition  of  good  repute 
and  pleasure.  They  are  only  making  grand  pretensions, 
and  they  do  not  really  despise  these  things.  They  go 
about  in  torn  raiment  and  with  solemn  visage,  and  live 
the  life  of  penury  and  hardship  as  a  bait,  to  make  people 
believe  that  they  are  lovers  of  good  conduct,  temperance, 
and  self-control."' 

Philo's  aphorism,  which  follows,  "  Be  drunk  in  a 
sober  manner,"  is  characteristic.  The  Stoic  extreme 
of  passionlessness  is  almost  as  false  as  the  Epicurean 
hedonism,  and  the  mean  between  them  is  the  ideal 
Jewish  life,  in  which  godliness  and  humanity  are 
blended. 

We  have  now  examined  the  main  divisions  of 
Philo's  philosophy,  and  we  see  that  his  metaphysics, 
cosmology,  theory  of  knowledge,  and  ethics  are  all 
religious  in  tone,  and  all  determined  in  their  main 
lines  by  his  Jewish  outlook.  His  Hebraism  is  a  seal 
which  stamps  all  that  enters  his  mind  from  Greek 

1  Quod  Det.  7. 
*  De  Fuga  5  ff . 


188    PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXAKDKIA 

sources,  and  the  Bible,  spiritually  interpreted,  is  the 
canon  of  all  his  wisdom. 

There  remains  one  minor  aspect  of  his  work  which 
must  be  briefly  examined,  because  it  has  become 
closely  associated  with  his  name.  This  is  his  number- 
symbolism,  by  which  he  ascribes  important  powers 
to  certain  numbers,  so  that  they  are  regarded  as  holy 
themselves  and  sanctifying  that  to  which  they  are 
attached.  This  feature  of  his  thought  is  commonly 
ascribed  to  Pythagorean  influence,  which  was  strong 
at  Alexandria,  and,  indeed,  throughout  the  world,  at 
this  era.  The  exact  details  of  the  holiness  of  four, 
seven,  ten,  fifty,  etc.,  Philo  may  have  borrowed  from 
neo-Pythagorean  sources,  but  the  general  tendency  was 
the  natural  result  of  his  environment  and  his  stage  of 
thought.  It  was  a  feature  of  the  recurring  childish- 
ness of  ideas  and  the  renascence  of  wonder  at  common 
things  which  is  apparent  on  many  hands.  To  have 
denied  the  powers  of  numbers  would  have  seemed  as 
absurd  and  eccentric  then  as  to  deny  the  powers  of 
electricity  to-day.  And  in  all  ages  people  hare  been 
found  to  regard  numbers  mystically  as  a  link  between 
God  and  earth,  and  a  means  of  solving  all  physical  and 
metaphysical  problems.  The  Hebrew  intellect,  primi- 
tive as  it  was,  tended  particularly  to  the  reverence  of 
the  numerical  powers.  Witness  the  Bible  itself,  which 
emphasizes  certain  numbers ;  and  witness  also  the  fifth 
chapter  of  the  Pirke  Abot,  with  its  lists  ranged  under 
four,  seven,  and  ten,  which  is  only  typical  of  the 
rabbinical  attitude.  Philo  is  not  original  in  his  views 


PHILO  AS  A  PHILOSOPHER          189 

concerning  numbers,  not  above  nor  below  the  loose 
thinking  of  his  age.  He  accepts  unquestioningly  the 
potency  of  seven,  because  of  its  marvellous  mathe- 
matical properties,  ratios,  etc.,  its  geometrical  efficacy, 
and  because  of  the  seven  periods  of  life  from  infancy 
to  old  age,  of  the  seven  parts  of  the  body,  the  seven 
motions,  the  seven  strings  of  the  lyre,  the  seven  vowels, 
and  the  very  name,  which  is  connected  with  worship 
( ff£/?aoyzo<:) .  All  this  is  trifling  and  trite,  but  what 
is  of  importance  is  the  use  which  Philo  makes  of  the 
sentiment.  He  converts  it  throughout  to  the  support 
and  glorification  of  Jewish  institutions.  Thus,  if  a 
man  honors  seven,  he  says,  he  will  devote  the  Sab- 
bath to  meditation  and  philosophy.1  Further,  as  seven 
is  the  symbol  of  rest  and  tranquillity,  the  Sabbath 
must  be  a  day  of  perfect  rest.  Ten  is  magnified  so 
as  to  honor  the  Decalogue,1  fifty  so  as  to  honor  the 
Feast  of  Pentecost.  So,  too,  the  Pythagoreans'  mathe- 
matical conceptions  of  God  as  "the  beginning  and 
limit  of  all  things,"  or,  again,  as  the  principle  of 
equality,  are  approved  by  Philo,  "  because  they  breed 
in  the  soul  the  fairest  and  most  nourishing  fruit — 
piety/'  In  short,  Philo's  Pythagoreanism  only  em- 
phasizes his  commanding  purpose — to  deepen  and 
recommend  the  Jewish  God-idea  and  the  Jewish 
method  of  life. 

Jewish  influences  throughout  are  the  determining 
element  of  Philo's  teaching;  they  are  the  dynamic 

1De  Mundi  Op.  15,  L.  A.  I.  46. 
*  De  Decal.  6-8. 


190    PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDKIA 

forces  working  upon  the  Greek  matter  and  producing 
the  new  Platonism,  which  constitutes  Philo's  contri- 
bution to  Greek  philosophy.  It  may,  indeed,  be  said 
that  his  Hebraism  makes  Philo  anti-philosophical,  be- 
cause he  has  no  desire  or  hope  of  adding  to  positive 
knowledge,  but  aims  only  at  the  calm  of  the  individual 
soul  in  union  with  its  God.  The  Platonic  Theory  of 
Ideas,  metaphysical  in  origin,  plays  a  very  important 
part  in  his  works,  but  it  is  adapted  mystically,  and 
turned  from  an  ideal  of  the  human  intellect  to  a  sup- 
port of  monotheism  and  piety.  Here  Philo  is  at  once 
the  leader  and  the  child  of  his  generation;  men  were 
no  longer  satisfied  with  rational  systems,  but  wanted 
a  religious  philosophy,  based  upon  a  transcendental 
principle  and  a  Divine  revelation  which  could  give 
them  some  certainty  and  some  positive  hope  in  life. 
Doubtless,  the  strong  mystical  tendency  in  Philo  de- 
stroyed the  balance  between  the  intuitive  and  the 
discursive  reason  which  makes  the  perfect  philosopher. 
In  his  overpowering  passion  for  God,  he  distrusts 
overmuch  the  analytical  efforts  of  the  human  mind. 
Nevertheless,  his  acquired  Hellenism  gives  his  Jewish 
conceptions  a  philosophical  impress,  and  this  has  made 
him  the  model  of  the  school  of  religious  philosophers. 
The  ministerial  "  Word "  became  the  "  ideal "  ex- 
pression of  God's  mind,  the  governing  reason,  the 
world-soul ;  the  angels  were  spiritualized  as  a  kingdom 
of  Ideas.  Piety  received  an  intellectual  as  well  as  a 
religious  value,  and  the  Mosaic  law  was  raised  to  a 
higher  dignity  as  an  ethical  code  of  universal  validity. 


PHILO  AS  A  PHILOSOPHEE          191 

A  complete  harmony  between  the  Hellenic  and  the 
Hebraic  outlook  upon  life  was  impossible,  but  Philo 
at  least  accomplished  a  harmony  between  Hebraic 
monotheism  and  Greek  metaphysics.  He  desired  to 
show  that  faith  and  philosophy  were  in  agreement, 
and  that  the  imaginative  and  reflective  conceptions 
of  God  and  the  Divine  government  were  in  unison. 
And  he  may  be  considered  to  have  realized  his  desire 
in  his  synthesis  of  Jewish  theology  and  Platonic 
idealism.  He  is  through  and  through  a  great  inter- 
preter, elucidating  points  of  unity  between  distinct 
systems  of  thought.  In  him  the  fusion  of  cultures, 
which  began  with  the  Septuagint  translation,  reached 
its  culmination.  It  reached  its  zenith  and  straight- 
way the  severance  began. 

In  the  next  chapter  we  shall  trace  Philo's  place  in 
Jewish  thought;  here  we  may  glance  at  his  place  in 
the  development  of  Greek  philosophy.  The  fusion  be- 
tween Eastern  and  Western  thought,  which  he  himself 
so  strikingly  illustrates,  continued  to  dominate  phi- 
losophy for  the  next  four  hundred  years;  and  Plato, 
who,  with  his  deep  religious  spirit,  had  a  broad  affin- 
ity with  the  Oriental  conception  of  the  universe,  was 
the  supreme  philosophical  master.  All  the  chief 
teachers  looked  to  him  for  the  intellectual  basis  of 
their  ideas  and  read  into  his  works  their  particular 
religious  beliefs;  but  they  failed  to  maintain  a  true 
harmony  between  the  two.  The  cultures  of  all  coun- 
tries and  races  mingled,  even  as  their  peoples  mingled 
under  the  Eoman  Empire,  but  they  were  so  combined 


192    PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDKIA 

as  to  lose  the  purity  and  individuality  of  each  element. 
The  Eastern  Platonists  who  followed  Philo  brought 
to  their  interpretation  less  nohle  conceptions  of  the 
Godhead,  the  Gnosticism  of  Syria,  the  dualism  of 
Persia,  the  impersonal  pantheism  of  India,  and  the 
theurgies  of  Egypt,  and  produced  strange  hybrids  of 
the  human  mind.  The  one  point  of  agreement  be- 
tween them  is  that  they  conceive  the  Supreme  God 
as  impersonal  and  entirely  inactive,  "  a  deified  Zero," 
and  endeavor  by  a  system  of  emanation  to  trace  the 
descent  of  this  baffling  principle  into  man  and  the 
universe.  Philo  was  as  unfortunate  in  his  philosophi- 
cal as  in  his  religious  following,  who  both  transformed 
his  poetical  metaphors  into  fixed  and  rigid  dogmas. 
His  doctrine  of  the  Logos  was,  on  the  one  hand,  the 
forerunner  of  the  Trinity  of  the  Church,  on  the  other 
of  the  Trinity  of  the  Alexandrian  neo-Platonists.  It 
is  difficult,  indeed,  to  trace  with  certainty  the  connec- 
tion between  Philo  and  the  later  school  of  Alexandrian 
Platonists,  but  there  appears  to  be  at  least  one  clear 
link  in  the  teaching  of  the  Syrian  Numenius,  who 
flourished  in  the  middle  of  the  second  century.  To 
him  are  attributed  the  two  sayings:  "Either  Plato 
Philonizes  or  Philo  Platonizes,"  and  "  What  is  Plato 
but  the  Attic  Moses?"  Modern  scholars  have  ques- 
tioned the  correctness  of  the  reference,  but  be  this 
as  it  may,  it  is  certain  that  Numenius  used  the  Bible 
as  evidence  of  Platonic  doctrines.  "We  should  go 
back,"  he  says,  in  a  fragment,  "  to  the  actual  writings 
of  Plato  and  call  in  as  testimony  the  ideas  of  the  most 


PHILO  AS  A  PHILOSOPHER          193 

cultured  races;  comparing  their  holy  books  and  laws 
we  should  bring  in  support  the  harmonious  ideas 
which  are  to  be  found  among  the  Brahmans  and  the 
Jews." '  Origen  tells  us/  moreover,  that  he  often 
introduced  excerpts  from  the  books  of  Moses  and  the 
Prophets,  and  allegorized  them  with  ingenuity.  In 
one  of  the  few  remains  of  his  writings  which  have 
come  down  to  us,  we  find  him  praising  the  verse  in 
the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  "  The  spirit  of  God  was 
upon  the  waters";  because,  as  Philo  had  interpreted 
it — following  perhaps  a  rabbinical  tradition — water 
represents  the  primal  world-stuff.  And  elsewhere  he 
mentions  the  efforts  of  the  Egyptian  magicians  to 
frustrate  the  miracles  of  Moses,  following  Philo's  ac- 
count in  his  life  of  the  Jewish  hero. 

The  work  of  Philo  helped  to  spread  a  knowledge  of 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures  far  and  wide  and  to  give  them 
general  authority  as  a  philosophical  book;  but  it  did 
not  succeed  in  spreading  the  pure  Hebrew  monothe- 
ism. The  exalted  Hebrew  idea  of  God  was  still  too 
sublime  for  the  pagan  nations,  even  for  their  philoso- 
phers. The  world  in  truth  was  decaying  morally  and 
intellectually,  a^d  most  of  all  in  powers  of  imagina- 
tion; and  its  hunger  for  God  found  expression  in 
crude  and  stunted  conceptions  of  His  nature.  Unable 
any  longer  to  soar  to  Heaven,  it  sullied  the  majesty 
of  the  Deity,  and  divided  the  Godhead  in  order  to 

1  Comp.  Euseb.,  Praep.  Evang.  IX  411A. 

2  C.  Celsum  IV.  51. 

13 


194    PHILO-JUD,EUS  OF  ALEXANDEIA 

bridge  the  gap.  Numenius  represents  in  philosophy 
the  Gnostic  ideas  about  God  which  were  widely  held 
by  the  heretics,  Jewish  and  Christian,  of  the  second 
century.  He  divides  the  Godhead  into  two  separate 
powers:  (1)  the  impersonal  Being  behind  all  reality, 
free  from  all  activity  whatsoever;  (2)  the  Demiurge 
or  active  governor  of  the  universe,  who  again  is  sub- 
divided into  a  transcendent  and  an  immanent  power. 
The  teaching  of  Plotinus,  the  most  famous  of  the 
later  Alexandrian  neo-Platonists,  shows  a  further  step 
in  the  development  of  religious  Platonism.  Viewed 
from  its  higher  side  it  is  an  attempt  to  explain  every- 
thing as  the  emanation  of  the  One.  But  philosophy 
in  the  third  century  debased  itself  in  order  to  support 
the  tottering  polytheistic  religion  of  the  pagan  world 
against  the  modified  Hebraic  creed,  Christianity, 
which  was  fast  demolishing  its  power.  Against  the 
Trinity  of  the  Church  the  philosophers  set  up  a  heav- 
enly Trinity  of  so-called  reason:  the  Ineffable  One, 
the  Demiurgic  Mind,  and  the  World  Soul;  and  be- 
tween this  Trinity  and  man  they  placed  intermediate 
hierarchies  of  gods,  angels,  and  demons — in  fact,  the 
whole  fugitive  army  of  Greek  polytheism  thinly  dis- 
guised. All  the  vulgar  fancies  and  superstitions 
which  Philo  had  intellectualized,  these  later  Eastern 
Platonists  sought  to  revive  and  justify  by  conceptions 
of  physical  emanation  blended  of  false  science  and 
mysticism.  They  hoped  to  found  a  universal  religion 
by  finding  room  in  one  system  for  the  deities  of  all 
nations ! 


PHILO  AS  A  PHILOSOPHEK          195 

From  Plotinus  down  to  Proclus,  neo-Platonism 
became  more  unintellectual,  more  insane,  more  pagan, 
and,  finally,  with  its  vapid  dreams,  it  brought  the  his- 
tory of  Greek  philosophy  to  an  inglorious  close.  Its 
finer  teachings,  however,  deeply  affected  mediaeval 
philosophy,  and  not  least  the  Arab-Jewish  school. 
The  theory  of  emanations  and  spiritual  hierarchies 
pervades  the  writings  of  Ibn  Ezra,  Ibn  Gabirol,  and 
Ibn  Baud,  and  thus  indirectly  provides  a  connection 
between  the  culture  of  Alexandrian  Judaism  and  the 
culture  of  Spanish  Judaism.  The  praise  of  God 
known  as  the  noVn  nro  by  Ibn  Gabirol  is  a  splendid 
example  of  the  Hebraizing  of  neo-Platonic  doctrines, 
which,  though  probably  quite  independent  of  his 
teaching,  recalls  constantly  the  ideas  of  Philo. 

By  his  place  at  the  head  of  the  neo-Platonic  school 
Philo  enters  the  broad  stream  of  the  world's  philo- 
sophical development,  but  his  more  lasting  influence 
was  exercised  over  the  religious  philosophy  of  Chris- 
tianity. He  was  the  direct  master  of  what  is  known 
as  the  Patristic  school,  which  sought  to  combine  the 
intellectual  conceptions  of  Plato  with  the  religious 
ideas  of  the  Gospels.  Its  most  celebrated  teachers 
were  Clement  and  Origen,  both  of  Alexandria,  who 
flourished  in  the  second  century.  They  resorted 
largely  to  allegorical  interpretation,  learning  from 
Philo  to  trace  in  the  Bible  principles  of  universal 
thought  and  profound  philosophy;  but  they  used  his 
method  and  his  lessons  to  support  notions  of  God  and 
the  Logos  which  were  alien  to  his  spirit.  He  had 


196    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDEIA 

possessed  pre-eminently  the  soaring  imagination  of 
poetry,  which  is  the  crown  of  the  intellectual  and  of 
the  religious  mind,  and  unites  them  in  their  highest 
excellence;  but  they  bounded  their  philosophy  within 
the  narrow  limits  of  dogma,  and  thereby  destroyed 
the  harmony  between  Hebraism  and  Hellenism  which 
he  had  contrived  to  effect.  The  controversy  of  Origen 
and  Celsus  began  again  the  battle  between  reason 
and  faith,  "which  was  to  destroy  for  centuries  the 
independence  of  philosophy  and  to  break  the  conti- 
nuity of  civilization."  Had  Philo  really  been  plough- 
ing the  sand,  and  was  an  agreement  between  faith 
and  reason,  between  religion  and  philosophy,  impossi- 
ble ?  Can  the  two  finest  creations  of  the  mind  only  be 
combined  on  the  terms  that  one  is  subordinate,  or 
rather  servile,  to  the  other  ?  In  Judaism,  if  anywhere, 
the  combination  should  be  possible,  for  Judaism  has 
as  its  basis  an  intuitional  conception  of  God,  which  is 
in  harmony  with  the  philosophical  conception  of  the 
universe,  and  it  has  little  dogma  besides.  The  neo- 
Platonists  and  the  Church  Fathers  failed  to  carry  on 
the  ideal  of  Philo,  but  it  was  to  be  expected  that 
among  his  own  people,  the  nation  of  philosophers,  as 
he  had  called  them,  he  would  have  found  true  succes- 
sors. Yet  the  use  made  of  his  work  by  the  Christians 
compelled  his  people  to  regard  him  as  a  betrayer  of 
the  law  and  to  avoid  his  goal  as  a  treacherous  snare. 
For  centuries  Greek  philosophy  was  banned  from  Jew- 
ish thought,  and  Philo's  works  are  not  mentioned  by 
any  Jewish  writer.  Strangers  possessed  his  inheri- 


PHILO  AS  A  PHILOSOPHEE          197 

tance,  and  his  name  alone,  "  Philo-Judaeus,"  bore  wit- 
ness to  his  nationality.  It  is  an  interesting  specula- 
tion to  consider  how  different  might  have  been  the  his- 
tory, not  only  of  the  Jews,  but  of  the  world,  if  the  Hel- 
lenistic Judaism  of  Philo  had  prevailed  in  the  Eoman- 
Greek  world  instead  of  "the  impurer  Hellenism  of 
Christianity."  When,  in  the  tenth  century,  the  lead- 
ers of  Jewish  thought  broke  the  bonds  of  seclusion, 
and  brought  anew  to  the  interpretation  of  their  re- 
ligion the  culture  of  the  outer  world,  Greek  philosophy 
became  again  a  powerful  influence,  though  it  was 
Aristotle  rather  than  Plato  whom  they  studied.  The 
harmonizing  spirit  of  Philo,  which  may  be  accounted 
part  of  the  genius  of  the  race,  lives  on  in  Saadia,  Mai- 
monides,  Ibn  Ezra,  Ibn  Gabirol,  and  Judah  Halevi. 
But  the  difference  between  him  and  the  Arabic  school 
is  marked.  They  do  not  inherit  his  whole  object,  for 
they  aimed  not  at  a  philosophical  Judaism  which 
should  be  a  world-religion,  but  at  a  philosophical  Ju- 
daism for  the  more  enlightened  Jews  alone.  Philo's 
work  was  the  culminating  point,  indeed,  of  a  great 
development  in  Judaism,  produced  by  the  mingling  of 
the  finest  products  of  human  reason  and  human 
imagination,  but  it  was  particularly  the  expression  of 
his  own  commanding  genius.  He  lacked  a  true  suc- 
cessor, for  those  who  shared  his  aim  did  not  inherit 
his  Jewish  outlook,  and  those  who  shared  his  Jewish 
outlook  did  not  inherit  his  aim.  What  is  characteris- 
tic of  and  peculiar  to  Philo  is  the  combination  of  the 
missionary  and  the  philosopher.  Living  at  a  time 


198    PHILO-JUDJEUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

when  the  Jewish  genius  expanded  most  brilliantly, 
and  when  Judaism  exercised  its  greatest  influence,  he 
hoped  to  make  his  religion  universal  by  showing  it  to 
be  philosophical,  and  to  bring  about  by  the  aid  of 
Plato  the  ideal  of  the  prophets. 


VII 
PHILO  AND  JEWISH  TRADITION 

We  have  seen  from  time  to  time  how  Philo's  inter- 
pretation of  the  Bible  corresponds  with  Palestinian 
Jewish  tradition ;  and  we  must  now  consider  more  in 
detail  the  relations  of  the  two  schools  of  Jewish  learn- 
ing. Until  the  last  century  it  was  commonly  supposed 
that  no  close  relation  existed,  and  that  the  Alexan- 
drian and  Palestinian  schools  were  independent  and 
opposed;  Scaliger,  the  greatest  scholar  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  wrote  *  that  "  Philo  was  more  ignorant 
of  Hebraic  and  Aramaic  lore  than  any  Gaul  or  Scy- 
thian," and  this  was  the  opinion  generally  held.  The 
researches  of  Freudenthal  and  Siegfried 2  have  shown 
the  falsity  of  these  views;  and,  most  important  of 
all,  Philo  refutes  them  out  of  his  own  mouth.  He 
refers  in  many  different  parts  of  his  works  *  to  the 
tradition  and  the  wisdom  of  his  ancestors,  he  tells 
us  how  on  the  Sabbath  the  Jews  studied  in  their 
synagogues  their  special  philosophy,*  and  he  com- 
mences his  "  Life  of  Moses  "  by  declaring  that  against 
the  false  calumnies  of  Greek  writers  he  will  set  forth 
the  true  account  which  he  has  learnt  from  the  sacred 

1De  Sectis  Judaids  XVIII. 

2Comp.  Freudenthal,  Hellenistische  Studien,  and  Sieg- 
fried, Philo  als  Ausleger  der  heiligen  Schrift. 
3  Comp.  Quis  Rer.  Div.  XLIII,  and  Chapter  II  above. 
*De  Hon.  II.  212. 


200    PHILO-JUD.EUS  OF  ALEXANDBIA 

writings  and  "  from  certain  elders  of  his  race."  In 
support  of  his  statement  we  have  the  remark  of 
Eusebius,  the  Christian  historian,  and  our  chief  an- 
cient authority  for  Philo's  work,1  that  he  set  forth  and 
expounded  not  only  the  laws  of  the  Bible,  but  many 
institutions  and  opinions  of  his  fathers.  Apart  from 
these  direct  references,  the  numerous  points  of  corre- 
spondence between  Philo's  interpretations  and  those  of 
the  Talmud  and  later  Midrash  would  compel  us  to 
admit  a  connection  between  Alexandria  and  Jeru- 
salem. 

The  break  between  the  two  schools  did  not  show 
itself  till  after  the  time  of  Philo.  Up  to  the  first 
century  of  the  Christian  era  the  rabbis  encouraged 
the  union  of  Shem  and  Japheth — the  two  good  sons 
of  one  parent — and  the  stream  of  ideas  flowed  quite 
freely  between  the  teachers  in  Palestine  and  the  Hel- 
lenized  colony  in  Egypt.2  Hence  the  Palestinian  Jews, 
on  the  one  hand,  received  the  firstfruits  of  this  ming- 
ling of  cultures,  and  the  Alexandrian  Jews,  on  the 
other,  must  have  inherited  the  early  tradition  of  the 
rabbinical  interpreters  embodied  in  ancient  Hala- 
kah  and  Haggadah.  By  this  common  heritage,  rather 
than  by  any  direct  borrowing,  it  seems  more  reason- 
able to  account  for  the  correspondence  in  the  two 
Midrashim.  It  should  be  remembered  that  nntil  the 
second  century  of  the  common  era  the  mass  of  Jew- 
ish tradition  was  a  floating  and  developing  body  of 

1  Hist.  Ecclesiast.  II.  iv.  2. 

2Comp.  Graetz,  "History"  II.  xviii. 


PHILO  AND  JEWISH  TRADITION     201 

opinion  not  consigned  to  writing  or  formalized,  but 
handed  down  by  word  of  mouth  from  teacher  to  pupil, 
and  preacher  to  congregation:  in  this  way  it  was 
diffused  throughout  the  mind  of  the  race,  indefi- 
nitely and,  to  some  extent,  unconsciously  shaping  its 
thought.  The  detailed  points  of  agreement  between 
Philo  and  the  Talmud  and  Midrash  are  not  of  great 
moment  in  themselves,  but  they  are  the  signs  of  a 
unity  of  development  and  the  catholicity  of  Judaism 
in  the  East  and  West.  Doubtless  the  development 
was  more  national  and  at  the  same  time  more  legal 
in  Judaea,  in  Alexandria  more  Hellenistic  and  philo- 
sophical, but  there  is  a  common  spiritual  bond  be- 
tween the  two  expressions,  pious  images,  fancies, 
similes,  interpretations  which  they  share.  They  are, 
as  it  were,  children  of  one  family,  and  despite  the 
varying  influences  of  environment  they  maintain  a 
family  resemblance.  With  the  Sibylline  oracles  we 
may  compare  Daniel  and  the  Psalms  of  Solomon; 
with  Aristeas  and  his  fellow- Apologists,  Josephus; 
with  the  allegorical  commentaries  of  Philo,  the  Mid- 
rashim.  Modern  scholars  have  gone  far  to  prove 
that  Philo  was  the  expounder  of  an  Hellenic  Midrash 
upon  the  Bible,  in  which  were  gathered  the  thoughts 
and  ideas  that  had  been  brought  to  Egypt  by  the  Jew- 
ish settlers,  modified,  no  doubt,  by  Greek  influences, 
but  still  bearing  the  stamp  of  their  origin.  Philo,  then, 
appears  in  the  direct  line  of  the  tradition  which  from 
the  time  of  the  Great  Synagogue  was  disseminated 
through  two  channels,  the  schools  of  Palestine  and 
the  writers  of  Alexandria.  He  developed  the  national 


202    PHILO-JUD^EUS  OP  ALEXANDRIA 

Jewish  theology  in  a  literary  form,  which  made  it 
available  for  the  world,  but  with  him  the  tradition  as 
a  Jewish  tradition  ends;  in  its  further  Hellenistic 
development  it  departed  entirely  from  its  original 
principles. 

It  is  natural  that  the  larger  number  of  parallels  be- 
tween Philo  and  the  rabbis  is  to  be  found  in  the  Hag- 
gadic  portions  of  Talmudic  teaching,  for  the  Hagga- 
dah  represents  the  same  spirit  as  underlies  Philo's 
work,  though  in  a  more  peculiarly  Jewish  form;  it  is 
an  allegory,  a  play  of  fancy,  a  tale  that  points  a  moral, 
or  illustrates  a  question.  It  had,  too,  largely  the 
same  origin,  for  it  gathered  together  the  popular  dis- 
courses given  in  the  synagogue  on  the  Sabbaths.  Yet 
the  relation  of  Philo  to  the  other  domain  of  the  Tal- 
mud, the  code  of  life,  or  the  Halakah,  is  of  great 
interest;  for,  as  we  have  seen,1  the  Alexandrian  com- 
munity had  a  Sanhedrin  of  their  own,  of  which  Philo's 
brother  was  the  president,  and  he  himself  probably  a 
member ;  and  in  his  exposition  of  the  "  Specific 
Laws  "  he  has  preserved  for  us  the  record  of  certain 
interpretations  of  the  Jewish  code,  which  are  illum- 
inating as  much  by  their  difference  from,  as  by  their 
agreement  with,  the  practices  of  Palestine.  The  gen- 
eral aim  of  Philo's  exegesis  of  the  law  was  to  show 
its  broad  principles  of  justice  and  humanity  rather 
than  to  formulate  its  exact  detail.  It  is  true,  he 
makes  it  an  offence2 — unknown  to  the  rabbis — for 

1Comp.  Chapter  I,  p.  17,  above. 
*De  Spec.  Leg.  II.  260. 


PHILO  AND  JEWISH  TRADITION"     203 

a  Jew  to  be  initiated  into  the  Greek  mysteries,  but 
usually  he  is  concerned  to  recommend  the  Halakah 
to  the  world  rather  than  expand  it  for  his  own 
community.  This  is  shown  in  his  treatment  of  the 
civil  as  much  as  the  moral  law.  The  great  system 
of  jurisprudence  in  his  day,  with  which  every  code 
claiming  to  have  universal  value  had  necessarily  to 
challenge  comparison,  was  Roman  Law.  That  part 
of  it  which  was  applied  throughout  the  Empire,  the 
jus  gentium,  was  regarded  as  "  written  reason."  It 
is  probable  that  contact  with  Roman  jurisprudence 
had  affected  the  practical  interpretations  which  the 
Alexandrian  Sanhedrin  put  upon  the  Biblical  legis- 
lation, and  was  the  cause  of  some  of  their  differ- 
ences from  the  Palestinian  Halakah.  In  treating 
the  ethical  law,  Philo's  object  was  to  show  its  agree- 
ment with  the  loftiest  conceptions  of  Greek  philos- 
ophers, and,  indeed,  its  profounder  truth;  in  treat- 
ing the  civil  law  of  the  Bible,  his  object  likewise  was 
to  show  its  agreement  with  the  highest  principles  of 
jurisprudence  and  its  superiority  to  pagan  codes. 
If  at  times  he  supports  a  greater  severity  than  the 
Palestinian  rabbis  eventually  allowed,  that  is  where 
greater  severity  implies  a  closer  relation  to  Roman 
Law.  Thus  he  has  not  the  horror  of  capital  punish- 
ment which  the  Jerusalem  Sanhedrin  exhibited;  he 
would  condemn  to  death  the  man  who  commits  wilful 
homicide,  whether  by  his  own  hand  or  by  poison;1 

1De  Spec.  Leg.  III.  17. 


204    PHILO-JmLEUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

whereas  the  other  Halakah  allows  it  only  in  the 
former  case.  He  who  commits  perjury  also  is  to 
suffer  capital  punishment.1  He  adds  a  law  which 
finds  no  place  in  the  Palestinian  tradition,  making  the 
exposure  of  children  a  capital  crime.3  Again,  follow- 
ing the  text  of  the  Biblical  law  literally  (see  Deut.xxi. 
18),  he  gives  power  of  life  and  death  to  parents  over 
their  rebellious  children,  whereas  the  Jewish  law  de- 
mands a  trial  before  a  court  to  make  the  death  sen- 
tence legal.  He  approves  of  the  lex  taUonis,  "  an  eye 
for  an  eye,  a  tooth  for  a  tooth,"  agreeing  here,  indeed, 
with  the  opinion  of  earlier  rabbis  like  R.  Eliezer 
(see  Baba  Kama  84, PDD  \*y  nnn  py,  "the  law  of 
eye  for  eye  is  to  be  taken  literally"),  and  disagree- 
ing with  the  later  Halakic  interpretation,  which  says 
that  the  law  of  Moses  means  the  award  of  the  value 
of  an  eye  for  an  e3Te,  etc. 

This  is  one  instance  among  many  of  Philo's  adop- 
tion of  the  older  tradition,  established  probably  under 
the  Sadducsean  predominance,  which  was  modified  in 
the  rabbinical  schools  of  the  first  and  the  second  cen- 
tury. Paradoxically,  in  his  exposition  of  the  law, 
Philo  follows  the  letter  more  closely  as  the  expres- 
sion of  justice,  while  the  later  rabbis  often  allegorize 
it  in  order  to  support  their  humaner  interpretation. 
Thus,  commenting  on  the  passage  in  Exodus  xxii.  3 
about  the  law  of  theft,  "  If  the  sun  be  risen  upon 
him,  blood  shall  be  shed  for  blood,"  he,  like  R. 

1Ibid.  II.  6. 

3De  Parentilus  Colendis  56. 


PHILO  AND  JEWISH  TRADITION     205 

Eliezer,  interprets  oaroa  D^ai,1  i.  e.,  literally.  "  If," 
he  says,  "the  owner  catches  the  thief  before  sun- 
rise, he  may  kill  him,  but  after  the  sun  has  risen 
he  must  bring  him  before  the  court."1  This  also 
was  the  Roman  law,  but  the  Halakah  interprets 
more  artificially :  "  If  it  were  as  clear  as  sunlight 
that  the  thief  would  not  have  killed  the  owner,  then 
the  owner  may  not  kill  him."  Philo  would  jus- 
tify the  old  law;  the  rabbis  explain  it  away.  On  the 
other  hand,  in  his  treatment  of  the  law  relating  to 
slaves,  Philo  extends  the  liberality  both  of  the  Bible 
and  the  Halakah.  He  declares  that  the  slave  is  to  be 
set  free  when  by  his  master's  violence  he  loses  an  eye 
or  even  a  tooth."  The  Bible  and  the  Talmud  direct 
emancipation  only  where  the  slave  loses  a  limb;  but 
Philo  writes  eloquently  of  the  humanity  of  which 
man  is  deprived  by  the  loss  of  sight;  and  he  would 
apparently  condemn  the  master  who  injured  his  slave 
more  seriously  to  the  full  penalties  of  the  ordinary 
law.4  Maimonides,  in  his  exposition  of  the  law,  ap- 
proves the  milder  practice,5  and  this  suggests  that  it 
had  an  old  tradition  behind  it.  Beautiful  is  Philo's 
stray  maxim,  "  Behave  to  your  servants  as  you  pray 
that  God  may  behave  to  you.  For  as  we  hear  them,  so 
shall  we  be  heard,  and  as  we  regard  them,  so  shall  we 

1  Comp.  Sifre  Debarim  237. 
*De  Spec.  Leg.  IV. 
*De  Spec.  Leg.  III.  36. 
*De  Spec.  Leg.  III.  33  and  34. 
"Moreh  Nebukim  III,  ch.  39. 


206    PHILO-JUD.EUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

be  regarded."1  In  his  whole  treatment  of  slavery, 
Philo  shows  remarkable  enlightenment  for  his  age. 
He  objects,  indeed,  to  the  institution  altogether, 
and  he  tempers  it  continually  with  ideas  of  equality. 
Thus,  following  the  Halakah,  he  directs  the  redemp- 
tion of  a  slave  seven  years  after  his  purchase,  and  he 
treats  the  laws  of  the  seventh-year  rest  to  the  land 
and  of  the  jubilee  as  of  universal  validity. 

Coming  to  the  more  specifically  religious  laws  we 
find  that  Philo,  missionary  as  he  is,  prohibits  alto- 
gether marriage  with  Gentiles,2  and  that  though,  in  the 
opinion  of  certain  rabbinic  teachers,  the  Biblical  pro- 
hibition extended  only  to  marriage  with  the  Canaan- 
ite  tribes,  and  unions  with  other  Gentiles  were  per- 
mitted.8 Philo  recognizes  how  dangerous  such  unions 
are  for  the  cause  which  he  had  so  dearly  at  heart,  the 
spreading  of  Judaism.  "  Even,"  says  he,  "  if  you 
yourself  remain  true  to  your  religion  through  the  in- 
fluence of  the  excellent  instruction  of  your  parents, 
yet  there  is  no  small  danger  that  your  children  by  such 
a  marriage  may  be  beguiled  away  by  bad  customs  to 
unlearn  the  true  religion  of  the  one  only  God."4 
Throughout,  Philo  is  true  to  the  mission  of  Israel  in 
its  highest  sense.  That  mission  is  not  assimilation, 
and  it  is  to  be  brought  about  by  no  easy  method  of 
mixing  with  the  surrounding  people.  It  can  be  ef- 

1  Fragmenta  ex  Antonio  II.  672. 
*De  Spec.  Leg.  III.  5,  II.  304,  305. 
»Deut.  vii.  3,  and  Abodah  Zarah  36b. 
*De  Spec.  Leg.  III.  5,  II.  304. 


fected  only  by  holding  up  the  Torah  in  its  purity  as 
a  light  to  the  nations,  and  by  offering  them  examples 
of  life  according  to  the  law. 

Of  the  special  ordinances  for  Sabbaths  and  festi- 
vals Philo  mentions  only  those  consecrated  by  the  Bib- 
lical law  or  ancient  tradition,  which  probably  were  the 
only  ones  settled  in  his  day.  He  lays  down  the  prohi- 
bition to  kindle  fire,1  to  make  or  return  deposits,  or  to 
plead  in  the  law  courts  on  the  Sabbath ;  he  speaks  of 
the  reading  of  the  Haggadah  and  Hallel  on  the  night 
of  Passover,  of  the  bringing  of  a  barley  cake  during 
the  'Omer  and  of  the  first  fruits  to  the  Temple  on  the 
Feast  of  Weeks,  of  the  Shofar  at  New  Year,  and  of  the 
Sukkah,  but  not  of  the  Lulab  at  Tabernacles.  It 
should  be  remembered  that  the  Halakah  was  not  con- 
solidated till  the  second  or  third  century,  and  in 
Philo's  time  it  was  in  the  process  of  formation  by  dif- 
ferent schools  of  rabbis.  But  the  passage  quoted  in  an 
earlier  chapter,  about  adding  to  the  law,  proves  his 
reverence  for  the  oral  law." 

Though  his  statement  of  the  civil  and  religious  law 
is  of  great  interest  to  the  student  of  Halakic  de- 
velopment, Philo's  work  presents  greater  correspond- 
ence, on  the  whole,  with  the  Haggadah,  which  in  a 
primitive  way  draws  philosophical  and  ethical  lessons 
from  the  Bible  narrative.  It  is  a  free  interpretation 
of  the  Scriptures,  the  expression  of  the  individual 
moralist;  it  loves  to  point  a  moral  and  adorn  a  tale, 
and  in  many  cases  it  is  in  agreement  with  the  Hel- 

1  De  Septen.  5  ff.  a  See  Chapter  IV,  p.  125,  above. 


208    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

lenistic  school.  To  take  a  few  typical  examples:  An 
early  interpretation  explains  the  story  of  the  Brazen 
Serpent,  as  Philo  does,1  to  mean  that  as  long  as  Israel 
are  looking  upward  to  the  Father  in  Heaven  they 
will  live,  but  when  they  cease  to  do  so  they  will  die. 
Another,  like  him  again,  finds  the  motive  of  the  com- 
mand to  bore  the  ear  of  the  slave  who  will  not  leave 
his  master  at  the  seventh  year  of  redemption,  in  the 
principle  that  men  are  God's  servants,  and  should  not 
voluntarily  throw  away  their  precious  freedom.  So, 
too,  the  Haggadah  agrees  in  numerous  points  with 
Philo's  stories  about  the  patriarchs.*  If  one  were  to 
go  through  the  Midrashic  interpretations  of  the  Five 
Books  of  Moses,  he  would  find  in  nearly  every  section 
interpretations  reminiscent  of  Philo.  In  some  cases, 
however,  there  are  striking  contrasts  in  the  two  com- 
mentaries. Thus  the  Midrash8  tells  that  the  four 
rivers  of  Eden  symbolize  the  four  great  nations  of 
the  old  world;  to  Philo,  they  represent  the  four  cardi- 
nal virtues  established  by  Greek  philosophers.  The 
Palestinian  commentators  were  prone  to  see  an  his- 
torical where  Philo  saw  a  philosophical  image. 

The  question  may  be  asked,  Who  is  the  originator 
and  who  the  borrower  of  the  common  tradition  ?  And 
it  is  a  question  to  which  chronology  can  give  no  cer- 
tain answer,  and  for  which  dates  or  records  have  no 

xMishnah  Rosh  Hashanah  III.  8,  and  Philo,  De  Somn. 
II.  11. 

*  Comp.  Agadah  "bei  Philo,  by  Treitel,  Monatsschrift, 
1909. 

1  Comp.  Bereshit  Rabba  16,  4. 


PHILO  AND  JEWISH  TKADITIOX     209 

meaning.  For  the  Haggadah  was  not  committed  to 
writing  till  many  generations  had  known  its  influ- 
ences, and  it  was  not  finally  compiled  till  many  gen- 
erations more  had  handed  it  down  with  continuous 
accretions.  The  Haggadah  in  fact  is  part  of  the  per- 
manent spirit  of  the  race  going  back  to  a  hoary 
past,  and  stretching  down  "  the  echoing  grooves 
of  time"  to  the  tradition  of  Judaism  in  our  own 
day.  The  Hebrew  Word  means,  and  the  thing  is, 
"what  is  said":  the  utterances  of  the  inspired 
teacher,  some  tale,  some  happy  play  of  fancy,  some 
moral  aphorism,  some  charming  allegory  which  cap- 
tivated the  hearers,  and  was  handed  down  the  gen- 
erations as  a  precious  thought.  It  is  significant  in 
this  regard  that  the  Haggadah  is  remarkable  for  the 
number  of  foreign  words  which  it  contains,  Greek, 
Persian,  and  Eoman  terms  jostling  with  Hebrew  and 
Aramaic.  For  while  the  Halakah  was  the  production 
of  the  Palestinian  and  Babylonian  schools  alone,  the 
Haggadah  brought  together  the  harvest  of  all  lands ; 
and  scraps  of  Greek  philosophy  found  their  way  to 
Palestine  before  the  Alexandrian  school  developed 
its  systematic  allegory.  In  the  Mishnah,  the  earliest 
body  of  Jewish  lore  which  was  definitely  formulated 
and  written  down,  one  section  is  Haggadic,  the 
passages  we  know  as  the  "Ethics  of  the  Fathers." 
Now,  we  cannot  place  the  date  of  this  compilation 
before  the  first  century,1  and  thus  it  would  seem  to 

1  Comp.  Taylor's  edition. 
14 


210    PHILO-JUTLEUS  OF  ALEXAXDEIA 

be  contemporary  with  Philo's  work,  to  which  it 
affords  numerous  parallels.  But  the  great  mass  of 
the  Haggadah,  the  Pesikta,  the  Mekilta,  and  the 
other  Midrashim,  were  all  later  compilations,  some 
of  them  as  late  as  the  fifth  and  the  sixth  century. 
Are  we  to  say,  then,  that  where  they  correspond  to 
Philo  they  show  his  influence?  At  first  this  would 
appear  the  natural  conclusion. 

There  is  a  better  test  of  priority,  however,  than  the 
date  of  compilation,  the  test  of  the  thought  itself  and 
its  expression.  And  judged  by  this  test  we  see  that 
the  Haggadah  is  the  more  ancient,  the  primal  devel- 
opment of  the  Hebrew  mind.  The  "  Sayings  of  the 
Fathers"  are  typical  of  the  finest  and  most  concen- 
trated wisdom  of  the  Haggadah,  and  exhibit  thought 
in  its  impulsive,  unsystematic,  gnomic  expression, 
neither  logical  nor  illogical,  because  it  knows  not 
logic.  Beautiful  ethical  intuitions  and  profound 
guesses  at  theological  truth  abound;  anything  like  a 
definite  system  of  ethics  and  theology  is  not  to  be 
found,  whence  it  is  said,  "  Do  not  argue  with  the 
Haggadah."  Even  more  so  is  this  the  case  with 
the  bulk  of  the  Midrash.  There,  pious  fancy  will 
weave  itself  around  the  history  and  ideals  of  the 
people,  and  suddenly  one  comes  across  a  sage  re- 
flection or  a  philosophical  utterance.  With  Philo  it 
is  otherwise.  Compared'  with  the  Greeks  he  is  un- 
systematic, inaccurate,  wanting  in  logic,  exuberant 
in  imagination.  Compared  with  the-  rabbis  he  is  a 
formal  and  accurate  philosopher,  an  exact  and  schol- 


PHILO  AND  JEWISH  TEADITION     211 

arly  theologian.  The  floating  poetical  ideas  of  the 
Haggadah  are  woven  by  him  into  the  fabric  of  a  Jew- 
ish philosophy  and  a  Jewish  theology,  and  knit  to- 
gether with  the  rational  conceptions  of  Aristotle's 
"  Metaphysics "  and  Plato's  "  Tima3us."  We  may 
say,  then,  almost  with  certainty,  that  Philo  derives 
from  the  early  Jewish  tradition,  though  at  the  same 
time  he  introduced  into  that  tradition  many  an  idea 
taken  from  the  Greek  thinkers,  which  found  its  way 
to  the  later  Palestinian  schools  of  Jamnia  and  Tibe- 
rias, and  was  recast  by  the  Hebraic  imagination. 

Over  and  over  again  we  find  that  he  adopts  some 
fancy  of  his  ancestors  and  develops  it  rhetorically 
and  philosophically  in  his  commentary.  To  give  many 
examples  or  references  to  examples  of  this  feature  of 
Philo's  work  is  not  within  the  scope  of  this  book,  but 
of  his  development  of  an  old  Palestinian  tradition 
the  following  passage  may  serve  as  a  typical  instance : 

"  There  Is  an  old  story,"  he  writes,  "  composed  by  the 
sages  and  handed  down  by  memory  from  age  to  age. 
....  They  say  that,  when  God  had  finished  the  world, 
he  asked  one  of  the  angels  if  aught  were  wanting  on 
land  or  in  sea,  in  air  or  in  heaven.  The  angel  answered 
that  all  was  perfect  and  complete.  One  thing  only  he 
desired,  speech,  to  praise  God's  works,  or  to  recount, 
rather  than  praise,  the  exceeding  wonderfulness  of  all 
things  made,  even  of  the  smallest  and  the  least.  For  the 
due  recital  of  God's  works  would  be  their  most  adequate 
praise,  seeing  that  they  needed  no  addition  of  ornament, 
but  possessed  in  the  sincerity  of  truth  the  most  perfect 
eulogy.  And  the  Father  approved  the  angel's  words,  and 
afterwards  appeared  the  race  gifted  with  the  muses  and 


212    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

with.  song.  This  is  the  ancient  story;  and  in  accord  with, 
it,  I  say  that  it  is  God's  peculiar  work  to  do  good,  and  the 
creature's  work  to  give  Him  thanks."  * 

Now  this  legend  and  moral  appear  in  another  form 
in  the  collection  of  Midrash,  the  Pirke  Eabbi  Eliezer, 
which  apparently  had  ancient  sources  that  have  disap- 
peared. There  it  is  told:  "When  the  Holy  One, 
blessed  be  He,  consulted  the  Torah  as  to  the  com- 
pleteness of  the  work  of  creation,  she  answered  him : 
*  Master  of  the  future  world,  if  there  be  no  host, 
over  whom  will  the  King  reign,  and  if  there  be  no 
creatures  to  praise  him,  where  is  the  glory  of  the 
King  ? '  And  the  Lord  of  the  world  was  pleased  with 
her  answer  and  forthwith  He  created  man." a 

The  Haggadah  is  rich  also  in  allegorical  specula- 
tion, of  which  there  are  traces  in  the  Biblical  books 
themselves.  In  the  book  of  Micah,  for  example,  we 
find  that  the  patriarchs  are  taken  as  types  of  certain 
virtues,  Abraham  of  Kindness,  non,  and  Jacob  of 
Truth,  HDK  (vii.  20).  And  when  the  ideas  of  the  peo- 
ple expanded  philosophically  in  Palestine  and  in  Alex- 
andria, the  profounder  conceptions  were  attached  to 
Scripture  by  the  device  of  allegorical  interpretation, 

^De  Plant.  30. 

*  It  is  impossible  for  me  to  make  an  adequate  acknowl- 
edgment of  my  debt  to  Dr.  Schechter,  President  of  the 
Jewish  Theological  Seminary  of  America.  But  I  should 
say  that  I  have  borrowed  freely  from  his  articles  on 
rabbinic  theology  in  the  Jewish  Quarterly  Review, 
vols.  VI  and  VII,  now  included  in  his  "Aspects  of  Rab- 
binic Theology." 


PHILO  AND  JEWISH  TKADITION     213 

and  certain  rabbis  attributed  a  higher  value  to  the 
inner  than  to  the  literal  meaning.  Thus  Akiba,  who 
wrote  an  elaborate  allegorical  work  upon  the  Song  of 
Songs,1  held  that  the  book  was  the  most  profound 
in  the  Bible,  and  Eabbi  Judah  similarly  regarded  the 
book  of  Job.2  The  Palestinian  allegorists  took  to 
themselves  a  wider  field  than  the  Alexandrian,  and 
looked  for  the  deeper  meanings  rather  in  the  Wisdom 
Literature  than  in  the  Pentateuch,  which  was  to  them 
essentially  the  Book  of  the  Law,  and,  therefore,  not 
a  fit  subject  for  Mashal,  i.  e.}  inner  meanings.'  Hence, 
their  allegorism  was  more  natural,  more  real,  and 
truer  to  the  spirit  of  that  which  they  interpreted.  They 
allegorized  when  an  allegory  was  invited,  whereas 
Philo  and  his  school  often  forced  their  philosophical 
meanings  in  face  of  the  clear  purport  of  the  text,  and 
without  regard  to  the  Hebrew.  In  the  one  case  alle- 
gory was  a  genuine  development,  and  might  have  been 
adopted  by  the  original  prophet:  in  the  other,  it  was 
reconstruction ;  and  the  artificial  un-Hebraic  character 
of  the  Hellenistic  commentary  was  one  of  the  causes 
of  its  disappearance  from  Jewish  tradition.  While 
the  Palestinian  allegorists  based  their  continuous 
philosophical  interpretation  upon  the  Wisdom  Books, 
they,  at  the  same  time,  looked  for  secondary  meanings 
wherever  opportunity  offered,  and  found  lessons  in 
letters  and  teachings  in  names.  An  early  school  of 

1Mishnah  Yodayim  III.  5. 

2  Bereshit  Rabba  26.  7. 

*Comp.  Schechter,  op.  cit..  Introduction. 


214    PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 


commentators  was  actually  known  as 
or  interpreters  of  signs,  and  their  method  was  by  ex- 
amination of  the  letters  of  a  word,  or  by  comparison 
of  different  verses,  to  explore  homilies.  For  instance, 
the  verse,  "And  God  showed  Moses  a  tree"  (Exod. 
xvi.  26),  by  which  he  sweetened  the  waters  at  Marah, 
symbolized,  by  a  play  on  the  word  imn,1  that  God 
taught  Moses  the  Torah,  of  which  it  is  said,  "  She  is 
a  tree  of  life"  (Prov.  iii.  18).  Another  happy  ex- 
ample of  this  method  occurs  in  the  sixth  section  of 
the  Pirke  Abot,  where  the  names  in  the  itinerary, 
niD3  SH'Sruni  .SirSnj  runno  (Numb.  xxi.  19),  are 
invested  with  a  spiritual  meaning.  Whoever  believes 
in  the  Torah,  it  is  written,  shall  be  exalted,  as  it  is 
said,  "  From  the  gift  of  the  law  man  attains  the  heri- 
tage of  God,  and  by  that  heritage  he  reaches  Heaven." 
In  this  passage  of  Palestinian  allegorism,  it  may  be 
noticed  that  the  Torah  is  regarded  as  a  spiritual  bond 
between  man  and  God,  and  as  a  sort  of  intermediary 
power  between  them.  This  feature  is  almost  as  fre- 
quent in  the  Midrash  as  the  Logos-idea  in  Philo,  so 
that  it  may  be  said  that  rabbinic  theology  finds  an 
idealism  in  the  Torah  which  corresponds  to  the  ideal- 
ism of  the  Philonic  Word.  It  is  expressed,  no  doubt, 
naively  and  fancifully,  even  playfully,  without  at- 
tempt at  philosophical  deductions.  It  is  informed  by 
the  same  spirit  as  the  Alexandrian  allegory,  but  it  is 
essentially  poetical  and  impulsive,  and  set  forth  in 

1  Berakot  24b. 

>  Mekilta  nbisn   I.  1. 


PHILO  AND  JEWISH  TKADITION     215 

mythical  personification,  not  in  deliberate  meta- 
physics. The  Torah  to  the  rabbis  was  the  embodiment 
of  the  Wisdom  which  the  writer  of  Proverbs  had  glori- 
fied, and  it  takes  its  prerogatives.  God  gazes  upon  the 
Torah  before  He  creates  the  world.1  The  Torah, 
though  the  chief,  is  not,  however,  the  only  object  of 
rabbinic  idealism.  God  and  His  name,  it  is  said, 
alone  existed  before  the  world  was  created,2  and  in  a 
Talmud  legend  relating  the  birth  of  man,  the  ideal 
power  is  identified  with  Truth,  which,  like  the  Logos, 
is  pictured  as  God's  own  seal. 

"  From   Heaven   to   Earth,   from   Earth   once   more   to 

Heaven 

Shall  Truth,  with  constant  interchange,  alight 
And  soar  again,  an  everlasting  link 
Between  the  world  and  Sky." 

(Translation  of  Emma  Lazarus.)* 

Correspondingly,  Philo  identifies  the  Logos  with  the 
name  of  God  and  with  Truth. 

Of  another  piece  of  Talmudic  idealism  we  catch  a 
trace  in  Maimonides'  "  Guide  of  the  Perplexed/' ' 
where  he  says  that  the  rabbis  explained  the  designa- 
tion of  God,nmya  asnS  [rendered  in  the  authorized 
version,  "  He  who  rideth  on  the  heavens"  (Ps.  Ixviii. 
4)],  to  mean  that  He  dwelt  in  the  highest  sphere  of 
heaven  amid  the  eternal  ideas  of  Justice  and  Virtue, 
as  it  is  said :  "  Justice  and  Kighteousness  are  the  base 

1  Bereshit  Rabba  I.  2. 
3  Pirke  R.  Eliezer  III. 
8  Comp.  Poems,  II,  p.  25. 
4Moreh  II,  ch.  70. 


216    PHILO-JinLEUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

of  Thy  throne"  (Ps.  Ixxxix.  15).  These  fancies  and 
interpretations  indicate  that  in  Palestine  as  well  as  in 
Alexandria  an  idealistic  theology  and  a  religious 
metaphysics  were  developing  at  this  period,  though  in 
the  East  it  was  more  imaginative,  more  Hebraic,  more 
in  the  spirit  of  the  old  prophets. 

The  more  serious  metaphysical  and  theological 
speculation  of  the  rabbis  was  embodied  in  the  doctrine 
of  the  "  Creation,"  and  the  "  Chariot,"  rnytf-a  nt?j?D 
and  niD^D  nt?jm,  which  in  form  were  commentaries 
on  the  early  chapters  of  Genesis  and  the  visions  of 
Ezekiel.  They  were  reserved  for  the  wisest  and  most 
learned,  for  the  rabbis  had  always  a  fear  of  in- 
troducing the  student  to  philosophy  until  his  knowl- 
edge of  the  law  was  well  established.  They  held,  with 
Plato,  that  metaphysical  speculation  must  be  the 
crown  of  knowledge,  and  if  treated  as  its  foundation, 
before  the  necessary  discipline  had  been  obtained,  it 
would  produce  all  sorts  of  wild  ideas.  Judaism  for 
them  was  primarily  not  a  philosophical  doctrine  but  a 
system  of  life.  The  Hellenistic  school  was  so  far  false 
to  their  standpoint  that  it  laid  stress  for  the  ordinary 
believer  upon  the  philosophical  meaning  as  well  as 
upon  the  law.  And  as  events  proved,  this  led  to  the 
neglect  of  the  law  and  the  dogmatic  establishment  of 
speculative  theories  as  the  basis  of  a  new  religion. 
Doubtless  the  consciousness  that  the  philosophical  de- 
velopment led  away  from  Judaism  increased  the  dis- 
trust of  the  later  rabbis  for  such  speculation,  and 
made  them  regard  esoteric  as  a  milder  term  for  heret- 


PHILO  AND  JEWISH  TRADITION     217 

ical;  but  the  warning  is  already  given  in  Ben  Sira: 
"  It  is  not  needful  for  thee  to  see  the  secret  things." * 
The  Talmud,  indeed,  records  certain  ideas  about  the 
powers  of  God  and  His  relation  to  the  universe  in 
the  names  of  the  great  masters;  and  in  these  ideas 
there  are  striking  resemblances  to  Philo's  conceptions. 
The  Word  is  spoken  of  as  an  intermediate  agency;* 
the  finger  of  God  is  really  the  Word;  the  angels  are 
sprung  from  the  Words  of  God :  Ben  Zoma  declared 
that  the  whole  work  of  creation  was  carried  out  by 
the  Word,  as  it  is  written,  "  And  God  said."  8  But  on 
the  other  hand  there  are  passages  in  which  the  rabbis 
oppose  the  Alexandrian  attitude,  and  point  out  in  its 
excessive  philosophizing  a  danger  to  Judaism,  so  that 
in  the  end  they  exclude  it.  Rabbi  Ishmael,  we  are 
told,  warned  his  pupils  of  the  danger  of  Greek  wis- 
dom.4 Akiba,  living  at  a  time  when  the  Jews  were 
righting  for  spiritual  as  well  as  for  physical  life 
against  the  combined  forces  of  the  Greeks  and  Rom- 
ans, proposed  to  ban  all  the  D'jirn  D'lao,5  and  the 
Gemara  argues  that  among  these  were  included  the 
Apocryphal  works  which  showed  Greek  influence. 
Again,  Elisha  ben  Abuya,  the  arch-heretic,  is  held  up 
to  reproach  because  he  read  JTD  nso,*  under  which 
title  Greek  Gnostic  books  are  probably  implied. 

'Eccles.  III.  15. 

2  Hagigah  14  ff.,  Sanhedrin  37". 

3  Bereshit  Rabba  4. 

4  Menahot  99. 

'Mishn'ah  Sanhedrin  II.  1. 
'Hagigah  15". 


218    PHILO-JUD.EUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

At  the  time  when  this  spirit  shows  itself,  the  ap- 
pearance of  heretical  offshoots  from  Judaism  was  al- 
ready pronounced.  Heresy  was  the  aftermath  of  the 
combination  of  Judaism  and  Hellenism,  and  if  fur- 
ther disintegration  was  to  be  avoided,  the  seductive 
Greek  influence  had  to  be  discouraged.  There  is  al- 
ways the  danger  in  a  mingling  of  two  cultures,  that 
each  will  lose  its  particular  excellence  in  a  compound 
which  has  certain  qualities,  but  not  the  virtues,  of 
either  element.  Compromises  may  be  desirable  in 
political  affairs ;  in  affairs  of  thought  they  are  perilous. 
Down  to  the  time  of  Philo,  the  fusion  of  thought  at 
Alexandria  had  been  beneficial,  and  had  broadened 
the  Jewish  outlook  without  impairing  its  strength,  but 
the  dissolving  forces  of  civilization  never  operated 
more  powerfully  than  in  the  early  centuries  of  the 
common  era,  when  the  intellect  of  the  world  was 
jaded  and  weary,  and  the  great  movement  in  culture 
was  a  jumbling  together  of  the  ideas  of  East  and 
West.  More  especially  in  the  cosmopolitan  towns, 
Alexandria,  Antioch,  and  Rome,  national  life,  national 
culture,  and  national  religion  were  undermined;  and 
even  the  Jew,  despite  the  stronghold  of  his  law  and 
tradition,  was  caught  in  the  general  vortex  of  ming- 
ling creeds  and  theologies.  Out  of  this  confusion 
(which  was  in  one  aspect  a  continuation  of  the  work 
of  Philo)  emerged,  first,  fantastic  Gnostic  religious 
and  philosophical  sects,  and,  finally,  the  Christian 
Church,  which  proved  the  system  best  fitted  to  survive 


PHILO  AND  JEWISH  TKADITION     219 

in  the  circumstances,  but  was  in  essence  as  well  as  in 
origin  a  blending  of  different  outlooks,  and  true  to  the 
cardinal  points  of  neither  Hebraism  nor  Hellenism. 
The  rabbis,  with  remarkable  intuition,  saw  that  the 
Hellenistic  development  of  Judaism,  which  had  vainly 
striven  to  make  Judaism  universal,  had  ended  in  vio- 
lating its  monotheism  and  abrogating  its  law ;  and  in 
that  era  of  disintegration,  denationalization,  and  de- 
composition they  determined  to  keep  their  heritage 
pure  and  inviolate.  Judaism  by  their  efforts  was  the 
only  national  culture  which  survived,  and  some  sacri- 
fice had  to  be  made  to  secure  this  end.  The  literary 
monuments  of  the  Alexandrian  community  from  the 
Septuagint  translation  to  the  philosophy  of  the  Chris- 
tian scholarchs  were  cut  out  of  Jewish  tradition,  and 
the  Babylonian  school  was  ignorant  altogether  of  the 
mv  nwn  (Greek  wisdom).  When  Ben  Zoma  desired 
to  study  the  D'jwn  D'iSD,  and  asked  of  his  teacher  at 
what  hour  of  the  day  it  was  lawful  to  do  so,  he  received 
the  reply  that  it  was  permissible  at  an  hour  which 
was  neither  day  nor  night;  for  the  precept  was  to 
study  the  Torah  by  day  and  night,  as  it  is  said, 
nVSi  DDV  13  mni  (Josh.  i.  8).  Bar  Kappara, 
indeed,  a  rabbi  of  the  third  century,  explained  Genesis 
ix.  27,  "  God  shall  enlarge  Japheth  and  he  shall 
dwell  in  the  tents  of  Shem,"  to  mean  that  the  words 
of  the  Torah  shall  be  recited  in  the  speech  of  Japheth 
(i.  e.,  Greek)  in  the  synagogues  and  schools,1  but  by 

1  Bereshit  Rabba  36.  8 


220    PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

most  other  teachers  the  union  between  Shem  and 
Japheth  was  no  longer  encouraged,  because  Japheth 
had  become  degraded  and  was  allied  with  the  cruel 
children  of  Edom  (Kome). 

Besides  the  Talmud  and  the  Midrash  we  have,  in 
the  work  of  Josephus,  another  indication  that  there 
was  in  Philo's  own  day  communication  between  Alex- 
andria and  Palestine.  The  Jewish  historian  marks 
the  influence  of  Hellenic  ideas  in  Palestine  in  fullest 
measure,  and  like  Philo  he  seeks  by  embellishment  to 
recommend  the  histories  and  Scriptures  of  his  people 
to  the  non-Jew  and  to  bring  home  their  thought  to 
the  cultured  Roman-Greek  world.  Thus,  in  the 
preface  to  his  "  Antiquities,"  he  notes,  as  Philo  noted 
in  his  commentary,  that  Moses  begins  his  laws  with 
a  philosophical  cosmology;  he  says  also  that  Moses 
spoke  some  things  under  a  fitting  allegory,  hiding 
beneath  it  a  very  remarkable  philosophical  theory. 
The  allegorical  commentary  which  Josephus  declared 
that  he  intended  to  write  has  not — if  it  was  written — 
come  down  to  us,  but  we  have  in  his  writings  certain 
allegorical  valuations  of  names  that  agree  directly 
with  Philo.  Abel  he  explains  as  signifying  mourning, 
Cain,  f'p,  as  selfish  possession.  In  the  priestly  gar- 
ments of  Aaron  he  sees  with  Philo  a  symbol  of  the 
universe,  which  the  high  priest  supported  when  he 
entered  the  Holy  of  Holies.  And  the  ritual  vessels  of 
the  tabernacle  have  also  their  universal  significance. 

"  If,"  says  the  Palestinian  Hellenist,  "  any  man  do  but 
consider  the  fabric  of  the  tabernacle  and  regard  the 


PHILO  AND  JEWISH  TRADITION"     221 

vestments  of  the  high  priest,  he  will  find  that  our  legis- 
lator was  a  Divine  man,  and  that  we  are  unjustly  re- 
proached by  those  who  attack  us  for  tribal  narrowness. 
For  if  he  look  upon  these  things  without  prejudice,  he 
will  find  that  each  one  was  made  by  way  of  imitation 
and  representation  of  the  universe.  "When  Moses  or- 
dered twelve  loaves  to  be  set  on  the  table,  he  denoted 
the  years  as  distinguished  into  so  many  months.  By 
branching  out  the  candlestick  into  seven  parts,  he  inti- 
mated the  seven  divisions  of  the  planets The 

vestments  of  the  high  priest,  being  made  of  linen,  signi- 
fied the  earth,  the  blue  color  thereof  denoted  the  sky, 
the  pomegranates  symbolized  lightning,  and  the  noise  of 
the  bells  resembled  thunder.  And  the  fashion  of  the 
ephod  showed  that  God  had  made  the  world  of  four 
elements." 1 

Let  us  listen  now  to  Philo:  "The  raiment  of  the 
priest  is  altogether  a  representation  and  imitation  of 
the  universe,  and  its  parts  are  the  parts  of  the  other. 
His  tunic  is  all  of  blue  linen,  the  symbol  of  the  sky. 
[The  rabbis  had  a  similar  fancy  of  the  Tsitsith 
(fringes).]  And  the  flowers  embroidered  thereon 
mark  the  earth,  from  which  all  things  flower.  And 
the  pomegranates  are  a  symbol  of  the  water,  being 
skilfully  called  thus  (fiotexot,  i,  e.,  flowing  fruit)  be- 
cause of  their  juice,  and  the  bells  are  the  symbols  of 
the  harmony  of  all  the  elements/'  * 

It  is  true  that  the  symbolism  of  the  two  allegorists 
is  varied,  but  a  common  spirit  and  aim  underlie  their 
interpretations.  This  is  true  alike  of  their  account 
of  the  ritualistic  and  civil  law  of  Moses.  Either,  then, 

xAnt.  III.  2.  *De  7.  Mos.  II.  12. 


222    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

there  was  a  common  source  of  Jewish  apologetic  lit- 
erature, or  Josephua  must  have  borrowed  from  Philo. 
It  is  significant  that  he  is  the  only  contemporary  of 
Philo  that  mentions  him.  He  speaks  of  him  as  a  dis- 
tinguished philosopher,  the  brother  of  the  alabarch, 
and  the  leader  of  the  embassy  to  Gaius.1  He  knows 
also  of  the  anti-Semitic  diatribes  of  Philo's  great  en- 
emy Apion,  and  two  of  his  extant  books  are  a  masterly 
reply  to  their  outpourings.  Hence  it  is  not  rash  to 
assume  that  he  knew  at  least  that  part  of  Philo's  work 
which  had  a  missionary  and  apologetic  purpose  —  the 
"  Life  of  Moses  "  and  the  "  Hypothetica."  He  makes 
no  acknowledgment  to  them,  it  is  true,  but  expressions 
of  obligation  were  not  in  the  fashion  of  the  time.  Pla- 
giarism was  held  to  be  no  crime,  and  citation  of  au- 
thorities in  notes  or  elsewhere  was  almost  unknown  in 
literature  —  save  in  the  Talmud,2  where  to  tell  some- 
thing in  the  name  of  somebody  else  is  a  virtue.  But 
one  can  hardly  doubt  that  the  man  who  devoted  him- 
self to  refuting  the  lying  calumnies  of  Apion  first 
made  himself  master  of  the  classical  work  of  Apion's 
opponent,  which  claimed  to  give  to  the  Greek  world 
the  authoritative  account  of  the  Jewish  lawgiver  and 
his  legislation. 

What  Josephus  knew  must  have  been  known  to 
other  cultured  Jews  of  Palestine.  Yet  Philo,  save  in 
one  doubtful  case  which  will  be  noticed,  is  not  men- 
tioned by  any  Jewish  writer  between  Josephus  in  the 


Ant.  XVIII.  8.  1. 
a  Comp.  "  Ethics  of  the  Fathers  "  VI.  6. 


PHILO  AND  JEWISH  TEADITION     223 

first  and  Azariah  del  Kossi  in  the  sixteenth  century. 
The  compilers  of  the  Midrashim  and  the  Yalkut,  the 
philosophers  of  the  Dark  and  Middle  Ages,  finally  the 
Cabbalists,  are  continually  reminiscent  of  his  doc- 
trines, but  they  do  not  mention  his  works  or  his  ex- 
istence. The  Midrash  Tadshe,1  a  tenth  century  com- 
pilation of  allegorical  exegesis,  contains  definite  paral- 
lels to  Philonic  passages,  especially  in  its  quotations 
from  an  Essene  Tannaite,  Pinhas  ben  Jai'r;  but  again 
the  trace  of  influence  is  indirect.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  Christian  writers  from  the  time  of  Clement  in 
the  second  century  quote  him  freely,  make  anthologies 
of  his  beautiful  sayings,  and  in  their  more  imaginative 
moments  acclaim  him  the  comrade  of  Mark  and  the 
friend  of  Peter.  The  rise  of  the  Christian  Church, 
which  coincided  with  the  downfall  of  the  nation, 
caused  the  rabbis  to  emphasize  the  national  character 
of  Judaism  in  order  to  preserve  the  old  faith  of  their 
fathers  in  the  critical  condition  in  which  exile,  perse- 
cution, and  assimilation  placed  it.  The  first  century 
was  a  time  of  feverish  dreams  and  wild  hopes  that 
were  not  realizable:  men  had  looked  for  the  coming 
of  the  days  of  universal  peace  and  good-will,  and  the 
Alexandrian  Jews  in  particular  hoped  for  the  spread- 
ing of  Judaism  over  the  world.  The  rabbis  recog- 
nized that  this  consummation  was  far  away,  and  that 
Judaism  must  remain  particularist  for  centuries  in 
the  hope  of  a  final  universalism.  Meantime  it  must 

1  See  Epstein,  Philon  et  le  Midrasch  Tadsche,  Revue 
des  Etudes  Juives,  XXI,  p.  80. 


224    PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDKIA 

hold  fast  to  the  law  and,  in  default  of  a  national  home, 
strengthen  the  national  religious  life  in  each  Jewish 
household.  They  regarded  Greek  as  not  only  a 
strange  but  a  hostile  tongue,  and  the  allegorical  exe- 
gesis of  the  Bible,  which  had  led  to  the  whittling  away 
of  the  law,  as  a  godless  wisdom.  The  Septuagint  trans- 
lation, which  had  offered  a  starting  point  for  philo- 
sophical speculation,  was  replaced  by  a  new  Greek  ver- 
sion of  the  Old  Testament  made  by  Aquila,  a  prose- 
lyte, in  the  first  century.  It  gave  a  baldly  literal 
translation  of  the  Hebrew  text,  sacrificing  form  and 
even  lucidity  to  a  faithful  transcript.  With  uncon- 
scious irony  the  rabbis,  who  rejoiced  in  its  truth  to 
the  Hebrew,  said  of  Aquila,  "Thou  art  fairer  than 
the  children  of  men,  grace  is  poured  into  thy  lips  " 
(Ps.  xlv).  In  truth  the  work  was  utterly  innocent  of 
literary  grace.  A  translation  of  the  Bible  marked  the 
end,  as  it  had  marked  the  beginning,  of  Jewish-Hel- 
lenistic literature,  but  if  the  first  had  suggested  the 
admission,  so  the  other  suggested  the  rejection  of 
Greek  philosophy  from  the  interpretation  of  Judaism 
and  a  return  to  the  exclusive  national  standpoint.  The 
rabbinical  appreciation  of  Aquila's  work  shows  that, 
while  the  Jews  were  in  Palestine,  many  still  required  a 
Greek  translation  of  the  Bible ;  but  when  in  the  third 
century  c.  E.  the  centre  of  the  religion  was  moved  to 
Babylon,  Greek  was  forgotten,  and  the  rabbis  for  a 
period  lost  sight  of  Greek  culture.  It  is  another  irony 
of  history  that  our  manuscripts  of  Philo  go  back  to 

1  Yer.  Meg.  .1.  71c. 


PHILO  AXD  JEWISH  TRADITION     225 

an  archetype  in  the  library  of  Caesarea  in  Palestine, 
which  Eusebius  studied  in  the  fourth  century.  Philo 
came  to  the  land  of  his  fathers  in  the  possession  of 
his  people's  enemies,  and  at  a  time  when  he  could  no 
longer  be  understood  by  his  people. 

Philo's  works  were  not  translated  into  Hebrew, 
and  as  Greek  ceased  to  be  the  language  of  the  cul- 
tured, they  could  not,  in  their  original  form,  have 
influenced  later  Jewish  philosophers.  But  the  Chris- 
tians, in  their  proselytizing  activity,  had  translated 
them  into  Latin  and  Armenian  before  the  fifth  cen- 
tury, and  through  one  of  these  means  they  may  possi- 
bly have  exercised  an  influence  upon  the  new  school  of 
Jewish  philosophy,  which,  opening  with  Saadia  in  the 
tenth  century,  blossomed  forth  in  the  Arabic-Spanish 
epoch.  The  light  of  historical  research  is  beginning  to 
illumine  the  obscurity  of  the  Dark  Ages,  and  has  re- 
vealed traces  of  an  Alexandrian  allegorist  in  the 
writings  of  the  Persian  Jew  Benjamin  al-ISTehawendi, 
himself  a  distinguished  allegorizer  of  the  Bible,  who 
wrote  in  the  ninth  century  and  taught  that  God 
created  the  world  by  means  of  one  ministerial  angel.* 
Benjamin  relates  that  the  doctrine  was  held  by  a 
Jewish  sect  known  as  the  Maghariya,  which  prob- 
ably sprang  up  in  the  fourth  or  the  fifth  century, 
when  sects  grew  like  mushrooms.  The  Karaite  al- 
Kirkisani,  who  wrote  fifty  years  later,  says  that 


an  article  by  Dr.  Poznanski  In  the  Revue  des 
Etudes  Juives,   1905,   Philo   dans   Vancienne   litterature 
judeo-arabe,  pp.  10  ff. 
15 


226    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

the  Maghariya  sect  used  in  support  of  their  doctrine 
the  "prolegomena  of  an  Alexandrian  sage"  who 
gave  certain  remarkable  interpretations  of  the  Bible ; 
and  in  one  of  Dr.  Schechter's  Genizah  fragments, 
which  is  probably  to  be  ascribed  to  Kirkisani,  there 
are  contained  examples  of  the  Alexandrian's  explana- 
tions of  the  Decalogue,  which  occur,  and  occur  only, 
in  Philo's  treatise  on  the  "  Ten  Commandments." 

This  connection  between  Philo  and  an  obscure  Jew- 
ish sect,  or  an  obscurer  Persian-Jewish  writer,  may  ap- 
pear far-fetched  and  not  worth  the  making.  In  itself 
doubtless  it  is  unimportant,  but  it  serves  to  keep  Philo, 
however  barely,  within  Jewish  tradition.  For  it  shows 
that  Alexandrian  literature,  though  probably  through 
the  medium  of  a  Mohammedan  source,  was  known 
to  some  Jews  in  the  centuries  of  transition.  It  may  be 
that  further  examination  of  the  great  Genizah  col- 
lection, which  has  opened  to  Jewish  scholarship  a  new 
world,  will  reveal  further  and  stronger  ties  to  unite 
Philo  with  his  philosophical  successors,  of  whom  the 
first  is  Saadia  Gaon  (892-942  c.  E.).  Indeed  the 
main  interest  of  this  newly-discovered  connection,  if 
it  can  be  seriously  so  regarded,  is  that  it  suggests  the 
possibility  of  Saadia's  acquaintance  with  Philo  by 
means  of  a  translation.  That  Saadia  read  the  works 
upon  which  Christian  theologians  relied,  is  certain; 
and  a  fragment  in  which  he  refers  to  the  teaching  of 
Judah  the  Alexandrian1 — also  unearthed  from  the 

1  Comp.  Pozn&nski,  op.  cit.,  p.  27. 


PHILO  A^TD  JEWISH  TRADITION     227 

Cairo  Genizah — goes  some  way  to  support  the  sugges- 
tion. The  passage  refers  to  the  connection  of  the 
number  "  fifty  "  with  the  different  seasons  of  the  year, 
and  though  it  does  not  tally  exactly  with  any  piece 
of  the  extant  Philo,  it  is  in  the  Philonic  manner.  And 
Philo,  who  was  surnamed  Judseus  by  the  Church, 
would  have  been  re-named  by  his  own  people,  trans- 
lating from  the  Church  writers,  mirr.  One  would 
the  more  willingly  catch  on  to  this  floating  straw,  be- 
cause Saadia  was  at  once  a  compatriot  of  Philo,  born 
in  the  Fayyum  of  Egypt,  and  the  first  Jew  who  strove 
to  carry  on  his  work.  He  aimed  at  showing  the  phi- 
losophy of  the  Torah,  and  its  harmony  with  Greek 
wisdom  in  particular.  Aristotle,  who  had  been  trans- 
lated into  Arabic,  had  meantime  supplanted  Plato  as 
the  master  of  philosophy  for  theologians,  and  Saadia's 
magnum  opus,  mjni  nuiDK,  is  colored  throughout  by 
Aristotelian  ideas.  But  the  difference  of  masters 
does  not  obscure  the  likeness  of  aim,  and,  albeit  un- 
consciously, Saadia  renews  the  task  of  the  Hellenic- 
Jewish  school. 

Saadia's  work  was  carried  on  and  expanded  in  a 
great  outburst  of  the  Jewish  genius,  which  showed 
itself  most  brilliantly  in  the  Moorish-Spanish  king- 
dom. The  general  cultural  conditions  of  Alexandria 
in  the  first  century  B.  c.  E.  were  reproduced  in  Spain 
in  the  tenth  century.  Once  again  the  Jews  found 
themselves  politically  emancipated  amid  a  sympa- 
thetic environment,  and  again  they  illumined  their 
religious  tradition  with  all  the  culture  which  their 


228    PHILO-JUD^TJS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

environment  could  afford.  The  mingling  of  thought 
gave  birth  to  a  great  literature,  both  creative  and 
critical ;  to  a  striking  body  of  lyric  poetry ;  to  a  syste- 
matic theology,  and  a  religious  philosophy. 

While  the  study  of  the  old  Talmudic  lore  was  main- 
tained, the  greatest  teachers  developed  tradition 
afresh  by  a  philosophical  restatement  designed  to 
make  it  appeal  to  the  mental  attitude  of  the  enlight- 
ened. The  sermon  flourished  again,  collections  of 
Haggadah  (Yalkut)  were  made  as  storehouses  of 
homilies,  and  metaphysical  treatises  modelled  upon 
the  works  of  the  schoolmen  set  forth  a  philosophical 
Judaism  for  the  learned  world.  It  is  notable  also 
that  these  last  were  not  written  in  Hebrew  or  in  the 
Talmudic  dialect,  but  in  Arabic,  the  language  of  their 
cultured  environment;  for  though  the  missionary 
spirit  was  dead,  the  controversial  activity  of  the  pe- 
riod impelled  the  Jewish  philosophers  to  present  their 
ideas  in  the  form  used  by  the  philosophers  of  the 
general  community. 

It  is  not  only  the  general  conditions  of  the  Arab- 
Jewish  period,  but  also  the  special  development  of 
Jewish  ideas,  which  recalls  the  work  of  the  Alexan- 
drian school.  This  was,  indeed,  to  be  expected,  see- 
ing that  in  both  cases  there  was  a  mingling  of  He- 
braism and  Hellenism.  In  Spain,  however,  the  Jews 
acquired  Hellenism  at  second  hand,  and  through  the 
somewhat  distorted  medium  of  Arabic  translations  or 
scholastic  misunderstanding,  and  hence  the  harmony 
is  neither  complete  nor  pure.  They  endeavored  to 


PHILO  AND  JEWISH  TRADITION     229 

show  that  the  teachings  of  Aristotle  are  implicit 
in  the  written  and  the  oral  law,  but  the  interpreta- 
tion is  hardly  convincing  even  in  "  The  Guide  of  the 
Perplexed/'  of  Maimonides,  the  monumental  work 
which  marks  the  culmination  of  mediaeval  Jewish 
philosophy. 

If  there  is  one  figure  in  Jewish  tradition  with 
whom  Philo  challenges  at  once  comparison  and  con- 
trast, it  is  Maimonides,  the  brightest  star  of  the  Ara- 
bic, as  he  was  of  the  Hellenic,  development  of  the 
Jewish  religion.  Though  there  is  nothing  on  which 
to  found  any  direct  influence  of  the  one  on  the 
other,  the  aim,  the  method,  the  scope  of  their  philo- 
sophical work  are  the  same,  the  relation  which  they 
hold  to  exist  between  faith  and  philosophy  well- 
nigh  identical.  The  metaphysics  of  the  Bible,  ac- 
cording to  both,  is  hidden  beneath  an  allegory,  and 
is  meant  only  for  the  more  learned  of  the  people. 
To  Maimonides  the  Bible  is  not  only  the  standard  of 
all  wisdom,  but  it  is  "  the  Divine  anticipation  of 
human  discovery."  In  the  words  of  Hosea,  God  has 
therein  "multiplied  visions  and  spoken  in  simili- 
tudes "  (xii.  11).  The  duty  of  the  Jewish  philosopher 
is  to  expound  these  metaphors  and  similes;  and  Mai- 
monides, endeavoring  to  knit  Greek  metaphysics 
closely  with  Jewish  tradition,  propounds  a  science  of 
allegorical  values,  which  by  exact  philological  study 
traces  the  inner  as  well  as  the  outer  meaning  of  the 
Hebrew  words.  But  differentiated  as  it  is  by  greater 
mastery  of  the  tradition  and  closer  adherence  to  the 


230    PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDKIA 

Hebrew  text,  his  method  is  nearly  as  artificial  and 
his  thought  as  extraneous  to  the  text  as  the  method 
and  thought  of  Philo.  The  content  of  their  philoso- 
phies is,  indeed,  strikingly  alike,  save  that  the  one  is 
a  Platonist,  the  other  an  Aristotelian.  This  involves 
not  so  much  a  difference  of  philosophical  views  as  a 
difference  of  temper  and  of  objective.  The  followers 
of  Plato  are  mystics,  yearning  for  the  love  of  God ;  the 
followers  of  Aristotle  are  rationalists,  seeking  for  the 
abstract  knowledge  of  God.  Hence  in  Maimonides 
there  is  less  soaring  and  more  argument  than  in  Philo. 
Everything  is  deduced,  so  far  as  may  be,  with  exacti- 
tude and  logical  sequence — according  to  the  logic  of 
the  schoolmen — and  everything  is  formalized  accord- 
ing to  scholastic  principles.  But  the  subjects  treated 
are  the  same — the  nature  of  God  and  His  attributes, 
His  relation  to  the  universe  and  man,  the  manner 
of  the  creation,  and  the  way  of  righteousness. 

Maimonides,  who  is  in  form  more  loyal  to  Jewish 
tradition,  is  to  a  larger  degree  than  Philo  dependent 
on  authority  for  the  philosophical  ideas  which  he  ap- 
plies to  religion.  To  a  great  extent  this  is  due  to  the 
spirit  of  his  age,  for  in  the  Middle  Ages  not  only  was 
the  matter  of  thought,  but  also  its  form,  accepted  on 
authority,  and  Aristotle  ruled  the  one  as  imperiously 
as  the  Bible  ruled  the  other.  The  differences  of  form 
and  substance  do  not,  however,  obscure  the  essential 
likeness  with  Philo's  interpretation  of  Judaism. 
With  him  Maimonides  holds  that  the  essential  nature 


PHILO  AND  JEWISH  TRADITION     231 

of  God  is  incognizable.1  No  positive  predication  can 
properly  be  applied  to  Him,  but  we  know  Him  by 
His  activities  in  relation  to  man  and  the  world,  i.  e., 
by  His  attributes  or  by  what  Philo  called  His  powers. 
Maimonides  does  not  preserve  the  absolute  monar- 
chy of  the  Divine  government,  but  places  between 
God  and  man  intermediate  beings  with  subordinate 
creative  powers — the  separate  intelligences  of  the 
stars,  which  are  identified  with  the  angels  of  the 
Bible.'  But  he  maintains  inviolate  the  sole  causality 
of  God  and  His  immanence  in  the  human  soul.  Mai- 
monides, like  Philo,  gives  in  addition  to  a  metaphysi- 
cal theology  a  philosophical  exposition  of  the  law  of 
Moses,  which  has  the  same  guiding  principle  as  the 
books  on  the  "  Specific  Laws."  Moses  was  the  perfect 
legislator,1  whose  ordinances  are  D'p"TC,  i.  e.,  perfectly 
equitable,  attaining  "  the  mean " — the  Aristotelian 
conception  of  excellence — and  identical  with  the  eter- 
nal laws  of  nature.4  Numerous  details  of  Maimonides' 
interpretations  agree  with  those  given  in  the  books 
on  the  "  Specific  Laws."  Whether  correspondence  of 
thought  is  merely  an  indication  of  the  similar  work- 
ings of  Jewish  genius  in  similar  conditions,  or 
whether  it  is  the  effect  of  an  early  tradition  common 
to  both,  or  whether,  finally,  there  was  connection, 
however  indirect,  between  the  two  minds,  it  is  now 

1  Moreh  II,  ch.  1  fl. 
3  Ibid.  31. 
*IUd.  31. 
*  Moreh  III.  43  ff. 


232    PHILO-JmLEUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

impossible  to  say.  But  at  least  the  philosophy  of  Mai- 
monides  confirms  the  inner  Jewishness  of  the  philoso- 
phy of  Philo,  and  its  essential  loyalty  to  Jewish 
tradition. 

Not  less  striking  than  his  correspondence  with  later 
Jewish  religious  philosophy,  though  not  less  indefi- 
nite, is  the  relation  of  Philo  to  the  later  Jewish  mys- 
tical and  theosophical  literature,  purporting  also  to 
be  a  development  of  hoary  tradition,  and  indeed 
calling  itself  simply  the  tradition,  nbap.  Between 
Philo  and  the  Cabbalah  it  is  as  difficult  to  establish 
any  direct  connection  as  between  Philo  and  rabbinic 
Midrash,  but  the  likeness  in  spirit  and  the  signs  of  a 
common  source  are  equally  remarkable.  To  trace  God 
in  all  things  through  various  attributes  and  emana- 
tions, to  bring  God  and  man  into  direct  union,  to 
prove  that  there  is  an  immanent  God  within  the  soul 
of  the  individual,  and  to  show  how  this  may  be  in- 
spired with  the  transcendental  Deity — this  is  common 
to  both.  In  the  earliest  times  the  mystic  doctrine 
appears  to  have  been  a  form  of  Jewish  Gnosticism, 
speculation  about  the  nature  of  God  and  His  connec- 
tion with  the  world.  It  probably  embraced  the  nwyn 
rvwn  and  the  namo  ntpyn,  though  we  know  not  what 
these  exactly  contained.1  But  it  was  not  till  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  that  Jewish  mysticism  received  definite  and 
separate  literary  expression,  and  by  that  time  it  was 
mixed  up  with  a  number  of  neo-Platonic  and  magical 

1  Comp.  Ginzberg,  art.  "  Cabbalah,"  Jewish  Encyclo- 
pedia. 


PHILO  AND  JEWISH  TRADITION     333 

fancies  and  foreign  theosophies.  The  later  compila- 
tions of  this  character  form  what  is  more  regularly 
known  as  the  Cabbalah;  but,  apart  from  the  profes- 
sions of  the  later  writers,  a  continuous  train  of  tra- 
dition affirms  the  existence  of  secret  teachings  in 
Judaism  from  the  time  of  the  Babylonian  captivity. 
Jewish  mysticism  is  as  much  a  continuous  expression 
of  the  spirit  of  the  race  as  the  Jewish  law.  We  may 
then  without  rashness  conclude  that  the  later  Cab- 
balah is  a  coarser  development,  for  a  less  enlightened 
and  less  philosophical  age,  of  the  Gnostic  material 
which  Philo  refashioned  in  the  light  of  Platonism  for 
the  Hellenized  community  at  Alexandria.  Modern 
scholars  have  favored  the  idea  that  the  Essenes  were 
the  first  systematizers  of  and  the  first  practitioners  in 
the  Cabbalah,  and  have  interpreted  their  name1  to 
mean  those  engaged  in  secret  things,  but  the  mystic 
tradition  itself  is  earlier  than  the  foundation  of  a 
special  mystic  sect.  It  is  part  of  the  heritage  from 
the  Jewish  prophets  and  psalmists  and  the  Baby- 
lonian interaction  with  Hebraism. 

Philo  had  large  sympathies  with  the  Essenic  devel- 
opment of  Judaism,  and  he  speaks  at  times  as  though 
he  had  joined  one  of  their  communities,  and  therein 
had  been  initiated  into  the  great  mysteries  and  secret 
philosophies  of  the  sages.  We  have  noted  that  he 
offers  his  most  precious  wisdom  to  the  worthy  few 
alone,  "who  in  all  humility  practice  genuine  piety, 

1  Comp.  Taylor's  "  Ethics  of  the  Fathers,"  ch.  5,  notes. 


234    PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

free  from  all  false  pretence."  They,  in  turn,  are  to 
discourse  on  these  doctrines  only  to  other  members  of 
the  brotherhood.  "  I  bid  ye,  initiated  brethren,  who 
listen  with  chastened  ears,  receive  these  truly  sacred 
mysteries  in  your  inmost  souls,  and  reveal  them  not  to 
one  of  the  uninitiated,  but  laying  them  up  in  your 
hearts,  guard  them  as  a  most  excellent  treasure  in. 
which  the  noblest  of  possessions  is  stored,  the  knowl- 
edge, namely,  of  the  First  Cause  and  of  virtue,  and 
moreover  of  what  they  generate."  r  These  mysteries, 
it  is  not  unlikely,  represent  according  to  some  scholars 
the  "PD  of  the  Talmudical  rabbis,  which  was  elaborately 
developed  in  the  Zohar  and  kindred  writings.  Be  this 
as  it  may,  Philo's  religious  intensityexpresses  the  spirit 
of  the  Cabbalists,  his  mystic  soaring  is  the  prototype  of 
their  theosophical  ecstasies;  his  persistent  declaration 
that  God  encloses  the  universe,  but  is  Himself  not  en- 
closed by  anything,  contains  the  root  of  their  concep- 
tion of  the  En  Sof  («]io  |'tf),a  his  Logos-idealism, 
with  its  Divine  effluences,  which  are  the  true  causes  of 
all  changes,  physical  and  mental,  is  companion  to 
their  system  of  D'oSiy  and  nivso,  emanations  and 
spheres.  His  fancies  about  sex  and  the  struggle  be- 
tween a  male  and  female  principle  in  all  things  *  are  a 
constant  theme  of  their  teachers,  and  form  a  special 
section  of  their  wisdom,  Jinn  IID ,  the  mystery  of  gen- 
eration. His  conception  of  the  Logos  as  the  heavenly 

1  De  Cherubim  12  and  14.    Comp.  De  Somn.  I.  8. 
3  Comp.  De  Somn.  I.  12. 
*  Comp.  De  Fuga  9. 


PHILO  AND  JEWISH  TRADITION     235 

archetype  of  the  human  race,  the  "  Man-himself," 
is  the  Platonic  counterpart  of  their  }i?.np  DIK,  or 
"  primal  man,"  who  is  known  in  the  ancient  allegor- 
izing of  the  Song  of  Songs.  His  number-mysticism 
and  his  speech-idealism  reappear  more  crudely,  but 
not  obscurely,  in  their  ideas  of  creative  letters,  of 
which  the  cosmogony  by  the  twenty-two  letters  of 
the  Hebrew  alphabet  in  the  Sefer  Yezirah  is  typical. 
Finally,  his  teachings  of  ecstasy  and  Divine  possession 
are  repeated  in  divers  ways  in  their  descriptions  of 
the  pious  life  (nurwn). 

Philo,  indeed,  viewed  from  the  Jewish  standpoint, 
is  the  Hellenizer  not  only  of  the  law  but  also  of 
the  Cabbalah,  the  philosophical  adapter  of  the  secret 
traditional  wisdom  of  his  ancestors.  He  brings  it 
into  close  relation  with  Platonism  and  purifies  it; 
he  clears  away  its  anthropomorphisms  and  supersti- 
tious fantasies,  or  rather  he  raises  them  into  idealistic 
conceptions  and  sublime  exaltations  of  the  soul.  By 
his  deep  knowledge  of  the  intellectual  ideas  of  Greece 
he  refined  the  strange  compound  of  lofty  imagination 
and  popular  fancy,  and  raised  it  to  a  higher  value. 
Plato  and  the  Cabbalah  represent  the  same  mystic 
spirit  in  different  degrees  of  intellectual  sublimity 
and  religious  aspiration;  Philo  endeavored  to  unite 
the  two  manifestations.  He  lived  in  a  markedly  non- 
rational  age  given  over  to  mystical  speculation;  and 
Alexandria  especially,  by  her  cosmopolitan  character, 
"  furnished  the  soil  and  seed  which  formed  the  mys- 
tic philosophy  that  knew  how  to  blend  the  wisdom  and 


236    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

folly  of  the  ages."  *  Through  the  mass  of  apocalyptic 
literature  that  was  poured  forth  in  the  first  centuries 
of  the  common  era,  through  the  later  books  of  the 
Apocrypha,  through  the  Sefer  Yezirah  of  the  ninth 
and  the  Zohar  of  the  thirteenth  century,  and  through 
the  vast  literature  inspired  by  these  books,  run  the 
ideas  that  composed  Philo's  mystic  theology.  Philo 
himself  was  unknown,  but  his  religious  interpretation 
of  Platonism  had  entered  into  the  world's  thought, 
and  inspired  the  mystics  of  his  own  race  as  well  as  of 
the  Christian  world. 

After  a  thousand  years  of  Latin  domination  the 
Renaissance  revived  the  study  of  Greek  in  Western 
Europe,  and  to  the  most  cultured  of  his  race  Philo 
was  no  longer  a  sealed  book.  The  first  Jewish  writer 
to  show  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  him  and  a 
clear  idea  of  his  relation  to  Jewish  tradition  was  Aza- 
riah  dei  Rossi,  who  lived  in  the  sixteenth  century. 
His  "  Meor  Einayim  "  dealt  largely  with  the  Hellenis- 
tic epoch  of  Judaism,  and  its  attitude  towards  it  is 
summed  up  in  the  remark  that  "  all  that  is  good  in 
Philo  agrees  with  our  law/' J  He  pointed  out  many 
instances  of  agreement,  and  some  of  disagreement,  but 
he  objected  in  general  to  the  allegorizing  of  the  his- 
torical parts  of  the  Torah  and  to  the  absence  of  the 
traditional  interpretations  in  Philo's  commentaries. 
He  shared  largely  the  rabbinical  attitude  and  could 
not  give  an  independent  historical  appreciation  of 

TComp.  Hort,  Introduction  to  Clement's  Irp&ytamf. 
*Ed.  Cassel,  pp.  4  and  15". 


PHILO  AND  JEWISH  TKADITION     237 

Philo's  work.  That  was  not  to  come  for  two  hundred 
years  more.  To  Dei  Eossi  we  owe  the  Jewish  transla- 
tion of  Philo's  name,  mjo^K  rrYT  .*  To  the  outer 
world  Philo  was  "  the  Jew  " ;  to  his  own  people,  "  the 
Alexandrian." 

As  soon  as  Greek  was  reintroduced  into  the  schol- 
arly world,  Philo  began  to  reassert  an  important  in- 
fluence on  theology.  One  remarkable  school  of  Eng- 
lish mystics  and  religious  philosophers,  the  Cambridge 
Platonists,  who  wrote  during  the  seventeenth  century, 
founded  upon  him  their  method  and  also  their  gen- 
eral attitude  to  philosophy.1  They  were  Christian 
neo- Platonists,  who  looked  for  spiritual  allegories  in 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  and  combined  the 
teachings  of  Jesus  with  the  emotional  idealism  of  the 
Alexandrian  interpreters  of  Plato.  They  affirmed 
enthusiastically  God's  revelation  to  the  universe  and 
to  individual  man  through  the  Logos.  Their  imita- 
tion of  Philo's  allegorism  serves  to  mark  the  impor- 
tant place  that  he  occupied  in  the  learned  world  dur- 
ing the  seventeenth  century;  and  supports,  however 
slightly,  the  suggestion  that  he  influenced,  directly  or 
indirectly,  the  supreme  Jewish  philosopher  of  the  age, 
Baruch  de  Spinoza.  That  he  was  well  known  in  Hol- 
land at  the  time  is  shown  in  divers  ways.  He  is 
quoted  by  the  famous  jurist  Grotius  in  his  book 
which  founded  the  science  of  international  law;  he 
is  quoted  and  criticised,  as  we  have  seen,  by  Scaliger ; 

1  Comp.  Imre  Binah.  Meor  Einayim,  ch.  30. 

1  Comp.  J.  A.  Stewart,  "  Myths  of  Plato,"  ad  fin. 


238    PHILO-JUD.ETJS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

and  curiously  enough,  his  name,  "  Philo-Judaeus," 
is  applied  by  Rembrandt  to  the  portrait  of  his  own 
father,  now  in  the  Ferdinandeum  at  Innsbruck.  It 
is  tempting  to  conjecture  that  there  was  a  direct 
connection  between  the  Jewish  philosophers  of  the 
ancient  and  the  modern  world.  Whether  it  existed 
or  not,  there  is  certainly  kinship  in  their  ideas.  Spi- 
noza does  actually  refer  in  one  place,  in  his  "  The- 
ologicc-Political  Tractate"  (ch.  x),  to  the  opinion 
of  Philo-Judseus  upon  the  date  of  Psalm  Ixxxviii,  and 
there  are  other  places  in  the  same  book,  where  he  al- 
most echoes  the  words  of  the  Jewish  Platonist;  as 
where  he  speaks  of  God's  eternal  Word  being  divinely 
inscribed  in  the  human  mind :  "  And  this  is  the  true 
original  of  God's  covenant,  stamped  with  His  own 
seal,  namely,  the  idea  of  Himself,  as  it  were,  with  the 
image  of  His  Godhead"  (iv) ;  or,  again,  "The 
supreme  reward  for  keeping  God's  Word  is  that  Word 
itself."  Spinoza  knew  no  Greek,  but,  master  as  he  was 
of  Christian  theology,  he  may  have  studied  Philo  in 
a  Latin  translation,  and  caught  some  of  his  phrases. 
With  or  without  influence,  he  developed,  as  Philo  had 
done,  a  system  of  philosophy,  starting  from  the  He- 
brew conception  of  God  and  blending  Jewish  tradition 
with  scientific  metaphysics.  The  Unity  of  God  and 
His  sole  reality  were  the  fundamental  principles  of 
his  thought,  as  they  had  been  of  Philo's.  He  re- 
jected, indeed,  with  scorn  the  notion  that  all  philos- 
ophy must  be  deduced  from  the  Bible,  which  was  to 
him  a  book  of  moral  and  religious  worth,  but  free  from 


PHILO  AND  JEWISH  TRADITION     239 

all  philosophical  doctrine.  Theology,  the  subject  of 
the  Bible,  according  to  him,  demands  perfect  obedi- 
ence, philosophy  perfect  knowledge.1  Both  alike  are 
saving,  but  the  spheres  of  the  two  are  distinct:  and 
Moses  and  the  prophets  excel  in  law  and  imagination, 
not  in  reason  and  reflection.  Hence  Spinoza  ap- 
proached the  Bible  from  the  critical  standpoint; 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  he  approached  philosophy 
with  a  free  mind  searching  for  truth,  independent 
of  religious  dogmatism,  and  he  was,  therefore,  the 
founder  of  modern  philosophy.  None  the  less  his 
view  of  the  universe  is  an  intellectual  expression  of 
the  Hebraic  monotheism,  which  unites  a  religious  with 
a  scientific  monism.  He  regards  God  as  the  only 
reality,  sees  and  knows  all  things  in  Him,  and  deduces 
all  things  from  His  attributes,  which  are  the  incom- 
plete representations  that  man  makes  of  His  true  na- 
ture; he  explains  all  thought,  all  movement,  and  all 
that  seems  material  as  the  working  of  His  modes ;  and, 
finally,  he  places  as  the  end  of  man's  intellectual  pro- 
gress and  the  culmination  of  his  moral  life  the  love  of 
God.  In  truth,  Jewish  philosophy  has  its  unity 
and  its  special  stamp,  no  less  than  Jewish  religion  and 
tradition,  from  which  it  receives  its  nurture.  Thrice 
it  has  towered  up  in  a  great  system :  through  Philo  in 
the  classical,  through  Maimonides  in  the  mediaeval, 
through  Spinoza  in  the  modern  world.  In  the  Renais- 
sance of  Jewish  learning  during  the  nineteenth  cen- 

1  Comp.  "  Theologico-Political  Tractate  "  XV. 


240    PHILO-JUTL-EUS  OF  ALEXANDEIA 

tury,  Philo  was  at  last  studied  and  interpreted  by 
scholars  of  his  own  people.  The  first  modern  writer 
to  reveal  the  philosophy  of  Jewish  history  was  Nach- 
man  Krochmal  (1785-1840),  and  his  posthumous 
Hebrew  book,  "The  Guide  of  the  Perplexed  of  the 
Time,"  edited  by  Zunz,  contained  the  first  critical  ap- 
preciation of  the  Hellenistic  Jewish  culture  by  a  rab- 
binic scholar.  He  knew  no  Greek,  but  he  studied  the 
works  of  German  writers,  and  in  his  account  of  Philo 
gives  a  summary  of  the  remarks  of  the  theologian 
Neander,  himself  a  baptized  Jew.  In  his  own  criti- 
cism he  discerns  the  weakness  and  strength  of  Philo 
from  the  Jewish  aspect.  "  There  are,"  he  says, "  many 
strange  things  in  Philo's  exegesis,  not  only  because 
he  draws  far-fetched  allegories  from  the  text,  but  also 
because  he  interprets  single  words  without  a  sure 
foundation  in  Hebrew  philology.  He  uses  Scripture 
as  a  sort  of  clay  which  he  moulds  to  convey  his  philo- 
sophical ideas.  Yet  we  must  be  grateful  to  him  be- 
cause many  of  his  interpretations  are  beautiful  orna- 
ments to  the  text;  and  we  may  apply  to  them  what 
Ibn  Ezra  said  of  the  teachings  of  the  Haggadah, 
'  Some  of  them  are  fine  silks,  others  as  heavy  as  sack- 
cloth/" 

Krochmal  translated  into  Hebrew  examples  of 
Philo's  allegories  and  gave  parallels  and  contrasts  from 
the  Talmud.  The  relation  between  the  Palestinian 
and  the  Alexandrian  exegesis  was  more  elaborately 
considered  by  a  greater  master  of  Hellenistic  litera- 


241 


ture,  Zacharias  Frankel  (1801-1875),  who  has  been 
followed  by  a  band  of  Jewish  scholars.  Yearly  our 
understanding  of  the  Alexandrian  culture  becomes 
fuller.  Philo,  too,  has  in  part  been  translated  into 
Hebrew.  Indirect  in  the  past,  his  influence  on  Jewish 
thought  in  the  future  bids  fair  to  be  direct  and 
increasing. 


16 


VIII 
THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PHILO 

The  hope  which  Philo  had  cherished  and  worked  for 
was  the  spreading  of  the  knowledge  of  God  and  the 
diffusion  of  the  true  religion  over  the  whole  world.1 
The  end  of  Jewish  national  life  was  approaching,  but 
rabbis  in  Palestine  and  philosophers  at  Alexandria, 
unconscious  of  the  imminent  doom,  thought  that  the 
promise  of  the  prophet  was  soon  to  be  fulfilled,  and 
all  peoples  would  go  up  to  worship  the  one  God  at  the 
temple  upon  Mount  Zion,  which  should  be  the  re- 
ligious centre  of  the  world.  In  Philo's  day  a  uni- 
versal Judaism  seemed  possible,  a  Judaism  true  to 
the  Torah  as  well  as  to  the  Unity  of  God,'  spread 
over  the  Megalopolis  of  all  peoples;  and  in  the  light 
of  this  hope  Philo  welcomed  proselytism.  The  Jews 
had  a  clear  mission ;  they  were  to  be  the  light  of  the 
world,  because  they  alone  of  all  peoples  had  perceived 
God.  Israel  (Stotsr),  to  repeat  Philo's  etymology,  is 
the  man  who  beholds  God,  and  through  him  the  other 
nations  were  to  be  led  to  the  light.  The  mission  of 
Israel  was  not  a  passive  service,  but  an  active  preach- 
ing of  God's  word,  and  an  active  propagation  of  God's 
law  to  the  Gentile.  He  must  welcome  the  stranger 

1  Comp.  De  Humanitate  II.  395. 
•De  V.  Mos.  II.  1-5. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PHILO          243 

that  came  within  the  gates.1  Philo  struggled  against 
the  separative  and  exclusive  tendency  which  charac- 
terized a  section  of  his  race.  He  laid  stress  upon  the 
valuelessness  of  birth,  and  the  saving  power  of  God's 
grace  to  the  pagan  who  has  come  to  recognize  Him, 
in  language  which  Christian  commentators  call  in- 
credible in  a  Jew,  but  which  was  in  fact  typical  of 
the  common  feeling  at  Alexandria.  Appealing  to  the 
Gentiles,  Philo  declared  that  "  God  has  special  regard 
for  the  proselyte,  who  is  in  the  class  of  the  weak  and 
humble  together  with  the  widow  and  orphan1;  for 
he  may  be  alienated  from  his  kindred  when  he  is  con- 
verted to  the  honor  of  the  one  true  God,  and  aban- 
dons idolatrous,  polytheistic  worship,  but  God  is  all 
the  more  his  advocate  and  helper/'  And  speaking  to 
the  Jews  he  says :  *  "  Kinship  is  not  measured  by 
blood  alone  when  truth  is  the  judge,  but  by  likeness 
of  conduct  and  by  the  pursuit  of  the  same  objects." 
Similarly,  in  the  Midrash,  it  is  said  that  proselytes 
are  as  dear  to  God  as  those  who  were  born  Jews;4 
and,  again,  that  the  Torah  was  given  to  Israel  for  the 
benefit  of  all  peoples ; 6  or  *  that  the  purpose  of  Israel's 
dispersion  was  that  they  might  make  proselytes. 
Philo's  short  treatise  on  "  Nobility "  is  an  eloquent 

1  Comp.  De  Hon.  II.  6. 

2  De  Just.  6. 

8  Comp.  De  Nobilitate  6. 
4  Bamidbar  Rabba  8. 
•  Tanhuma  to  Debarim. 
"  Comp.  Pesahim  87". 


244    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDKIA 

plea  for  the  equal  treatment  of  the  stranger  who 
joins  the  true  faith;  and  the  author  finds  in  the 
Bible  narratives  support  for  his  thesis,  that  not  good 
birth  but  the  virtue  of  the  individual  is  the  true  test 
of  merit.  Of  the  valuelessness  of  the  one,  Cain,  Ham, 
and  Esau  are  types;  of  the  supreme  worth  of  the 
other,  Abraham,  who  is  set  up  as  the  model  of  the 
excellent  man  brought  up  among  idolaters,  but  led 
by  the  Divine  oracle,  revealed  to  his  mind,  to  embrace 
the  true  idea  of  God.  If  the  founder  of  the  Hebrew 
nation  was  himself  a  convert,  then  surely  there  was  a 
place  within  the  religion  for  other  converts.  Ee- 
markable  is  the  closing  note  of  the  book : 

"  We  should,  therefore,  blame  those  who  spuriously  ap- 
propriate as  their  own  merit  what  they  derive  from 
others,  good  birth;  and  they  should  justly  be  regarded  as 
enemies  not  only  of  the  Jewish  race,  but  of  all  mankind; 
of  the  Jewish  race,  because  they  engender  indifference 
in  their  brethren,  so  that  they  despise  the  righteous  life 
in  their  reliance  upon  their  ancestors'  virtue;  and  of  the 
Gentiles,  because  they  would  not  allow  them  their  meed 
of  reward  even  though  they  attain  to  the  highest  excel- 
lence of  conduct,  simply  because  they  have  not  com- 
mendable ancestors.  I  know  not  if  there  could  be  a 
more  pernicious  doctrine  than  this:  that  there  is  no 
punishment  for  the  wicked  offspring  of  good  parents,  and 
no  reward  for  the  good  offspring  of  evil  parents.  The 
law  judges  each  man  upon  his  own  merit,  and  does  not 
assign  praise  or  blame  according  to  the  virtues  of  the 
forefathers." 

And,  again,  he  writes :  "  God  judges  by  the  fruit 
of  the  tree,  not  by  the  root;  and  in  the  Divine  judg- 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PHILO          245 

ment  the  proselyte  will  be  raised  on  high,  and  he  will 
have  a  double  distinction,  because  on  earth  he  '  de- 
serted '  to  God,  and  later  he  receives  as  his  reward  a 
place  in  Heaven/'1 

Unfortunately,  the  development  of  missionizing 
activity,  which  followed  Philo's  epoch,  threatening,  as 
it  did,  the  fundamental  principles  of  Judaism,  neces- 
sitated the  reassertion  of  its  national  character  and 
antagonism  to  an  attitude  which  sought  expansion 
by  compromise.  It  is  the  tragedy  of  Philo's  work  that 
his  mission  to  the  nations  was  of  necessity  distrusted 
by  his  own  race,  and  that  his  appeal  for  tolerance 
within  the  community  was  turned  to  a  mockery  by  the 
hostility  which  the  converts  of  the  next  century 
showed  to  the  national  ideas.  Christian  apologists 
early  learned  to  imitate  Philo's  allegorical  method, 
and  appropriated  it  to  explain  away  the  laws  of  Moses. 
Within  a  hundred  years  of  Philo's  death,  his  ideal, 
at  least  in  the  form  in  which  he  had  conceived  it, 
had  been  shattered  for  ages.  While  he  was  preaching 
a  philosophical  Judaism  for  the  world  at  Alexandria, 
Peter  and  Paul  were  preaching  through  the  Diaspora 
an  heretical  Judaism  for  the  half-converted  Gentiles. 
The  disciples  of  Jesus  spread  his  teaching  far  and 
wide ;  but  they  continually  widened  the  breach  which 
their  Master  had  himself  initiated,  and  so  their 
work  became,  not  so  much  a  development  of  Juda- 
ism, as  an  attack  upon  it.  In  some  of  its  principles, 

lDe  Exsecr.  6.  II.  433. 


246    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

indeed,  the  message  of  Jesus  was  the  message  of 
Philo,  emphasizing,  as  it  did,  the  broad  principles  of 
morality  and  the  need  of  an  inner  godliness.  But 
it  was  fundamentally  differentiated  by  a  doctrine  of 
God  and  the  Messiah  which  was  neither  Jewish  nor 
philosophical,  and  by  the  breaking  away  from  the 
law  of  Moses,  which  cut  at  the  roots  of  national  life. 
Whatever  the  moral  worth  of  the  preaching  of  Jesus, 
it  involved  and  involves  the  overthrow  of  the  Jewish 
attitude  to  life  and  religion,  which  may  be  expressed 
as  the  sanctification  of  ordinary  conduct,  and  as 
morality  under  the  national  law.  To  this  ideal  Philo 
throughout  was  true,  and  the  Christian  teachers  were 
essentially  opposed,  and  however  much  they  approxi- 
mated to  his  method  and  utilized  his  thought,  they 
were  always  strangers  to  his  spirit.  Philo's  philos- 
ophy was  in  great  part  a  philosophy  of  the  law;  the 
Patristic  school  borrowed  his  allegorizing  method  and 
produced  a  philosophy  of  religious  dogma!  Those 
who  spread  the  Christian  doctrine  among  the  Hel- 
lenized  peoples  and  the  sophisticated  communities 
that  dwelt  round  the  Mediterranean  found  it  neces- 
sary to  explain  and  justify  it  by  the  metaphysical 
and  ethical  catchwords  of  the  day,  and  in  so  doing 
they  took  Philo  as  their  model.  They  followed  both 
in  general  and  in  detail  his  allegorical  interpretations 
in  their  recommendation  of  the  Old  Testament  to 
the  more  cultured  pagans,  as  the  apology  of  Justin, 
the  commentaries  of  Origen,  and  the  philosophical 
miscellany  ( Irpt»iJ.ar£'t<; )  of  Clement  abundantly  show. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PHILO          247 

Certain  parts  of  the  New  Testament  itself  exhibit 
the  combination  of  Hebraism  and  Hellenism  which 
characterizes  the  work  of  Philo.  In  the  sayings  of 
Jesus  we  have  the  Hebraic  strain,  but  in  Luke  and 
John  and  the  Epistles  the  mingling  of  cultures.  Thus 
the  Apostles  seem  to  some  the  successors  of  Philo,  and 
the  Epistles  the  lineal  descendants  of  the  "  Allegories 
of  the  Laws."  In  the  Fourth  Gospel  and  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews  especially  the  correspondence  is 
striking.  But  there  is,  in  fact,  despite  much  that  is 
common,  a  great  gulf  between  them.  The  later  mis- 
sionaries oppose  the  national  religion  and  the  Torah  : 
Philo  was  pre-eminently  their  champion. 

The  most  commanding  of  the  Apostles,  Paul  of 
Tarsus,  when  he  took  the  new  statement  of  Judaism 
out  of  the  region  of  spirit  and  tried  to  shape  it  into 
a  definite  religion  for  the  world,  "forgot  the  rock  from 
which  he  was  hewn."  As  a  modern  Jewish  theolo- 
gian says,1  "  His  break  with  the  past  is  violent  ;  Jesus 
seemed  to  expand  and  spiritualize  Judaism  ;  Paul  in 
some  senses  turns  it  upside  down."  His  work  may 
have  been  necessary  to  bring  home  the  Word  to  the 
heathen,  but  it  utterly  breaks  the  continuity  of  devel- 
opment. Paul  himself  was  little  of  a  philosopher,  and 
those  to  whom  he  preached  were  not  usually  philo- 
sophical communities  such  as  Philo  addressed  at 
Alexandria,  but  congregations  of  half  converted,  su- 
perstitious pagans.  The  philosophical  exposition  of 


Monteflore,  Jewish   Quarterly  Review,  VI,  p. 

423. 


248    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDKIA 

the  law  was  too  difficult  for  them,  while  the  ob- 
servance of  the  law  in  its  strictness  demanded  too 
great  a  sacrifice.  The  spiritual  teaching  of  Jesus 
was  dissociated  by  his  Apostle  from  its  source,  and 
the  break  with  Judaism  was  deliberate  and  com- 
plete. The  fanatical  zest  of  the  missionary  dominated 
him,  and  he  proclaimed  distinctly  where  the  new  He- 
braism which  was  offered  to  the  Gentile  should  de- 
part from  the  historic  religion  of  the  Jews :  "  For 
Christ  is  the  end  of  the  law  for  righteousness  to 
everyone  that  believeth,"1  he  says  to  the  Eomans; 
and  to  the  Galatians :  "  As  many  as  are  of  the  works 
of  the  law  are  under  the  curse."  *  "  Christ  hath  re- 
deemed us  from  the  curse  of  the  law  ....  But  be- 
fore faith  came,  we  were  kept  under  the  law,  shut  up 
with  the  faith  which  should  afterwards  be  revealed. 
Wherefore  the  law  was  our  schoolmaster  to  bring  us 
unto  Christ  that  we  might  be  justified  by  faith.  But 
after  that  faith  is  come,  we  are  no  longer  under  a 
schoolmaster."  Paul's  position  then — and  he  is  the 
forerunner  of  dogmatic  Christianity — involved  a  re- 
jection of  the  Torah;  and  it  is  this  which  above  all 
else  constituted  his  cleavage  from  both  Judaism  and 
the  Philonic  presentation  of  it. 

Philo  is  commonly  regarded  as  the  forerunner  of 
Christian  teaching,  and  it  is  doubtless  true  that  he 
suggested  to  the  Church  Fathers  parts  of  their  the- 
ology, and  represented  also  the  missionary  spirit 

1  Epistle  to  the  Romans  V. 
'Epistle  to  the  Galatians  III.  10. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PHILO          249 

which  inspired  the  teaching  of  some  Apostles.  But  it 
must  be  clearly  understood  that  he  shared  still  more 
the  spirit  of  Hillel,  whose  maxim  was  "  to  love  thy 
fellow-creatures  and  draw  them  near  to  the  Torah," 
and  that  he  would  have  been  fundamentally  opposed  to 
the  new  missionary  attitude  of  Paul.  The  doctrines 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  or  the  Epistle  to  the 
Ephesians,  are  absolutely  antipathetic  to  the  ideal  of 
the  "  Allegories  of  the  Laws."  Paul  is  allied  in  spirit 
— though  his  expression  is  that  of  the  fanatic  rather 
than  of  the  philosopher — to  the  extreme  allegorist 
section  of  philosophical  Jews  at  Alexandria,  attacked 
by  Philo  for  their  shallowness  in  the  famous  passage, 
quoted  from  De  Migrations  Abrahami  (ch.  16  *), 
who,  because  they  recognized  the  spiritual  meaning 
of  the  law,  rejected  its  literal  commands ;  because  they 
saw  that  circumcision  symbolized  the  abandonment 
of  the  sensual  life,  no  longer  observed  the  ceremony. 
The  same  antinomian  spirit  is  shown  in  the  Epistle 
to  the  Galatians  by  the  allegory  of  the  children  whom 
Abraham  had  by  Hagar  the  bondwoman  and  Sarah 
the  free  wife :  "  For  there  are  the  two  covenants,  the 
one  from  the  mount  of  Sinai  which  gendereth  to  bond- 
age, which  is  Hagar But  we,  brethren,  as 

Isaac  was,  are  the  children  of  promise."  To  Philo 
the  law  and  the  observance  of  the  letter  were  the  high- 
road to  freedom  and  the  Divine  spirit,  and,  remaining 
loyal  to  the  Jewish  conception  of  religion,  for  all  his 

»Comp.  Chapter  IV,  above,  p.  126. 


250    PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDKIA 

philosophical  outlook.,  he  said :  "  The  rejection  of 
the  NO/MS  will  produce  chaos  in  our  lives."  To  Paul 
the  law  was  an  obstacle  to  the  spread  of  religious  truth 
and  a  fetter  to  the  spiritual  life  of  the  individual. 

It  is  possible  that  an  extremist  section  of  the  Jews 
pressed  the  letter  of  the  law  to  excess,  so  as  to  lose  its 
spirit,  but  the  opposite  excess,  into  which  Paul 
plunged  the  new  faith,  was  as  narrow.  It  involved  a 
glorification  of  belief,  which  did  not  imply  any 
relation  to  conduct.  Philo  had  pleaded  no  less  earn- 
estly than  the  Apostle  for  the  reliance  upon  grace 
and  the  saving  virtue  of  faith,  but  he  did  not  there- 
fore absolve  men  from  the  law  which  made  for  right- 
eousness.1 And  lest  it  be  thought  that  the  stress  laid 
upon  faith  was  peculiar  to  Hellenizing  Judaism,  we 
have  only  to  note  such  passages  as  Dr.  Schechter  has 
adduced  from  the  early  Midrash  on  the  rabbinic  con- 
ception.* "  Great  was  the  merit  of  faith  which  Israel 
put  in  God ;  for  it  was  by  the  merit  of  this  faith  that 
the  Holy  Spirit  came  over  them,  and  they  said  the 
nvty,  (i.  e.,  the  Song  of  Moses)  to  God,  as  it  is  said, 
'  And  they  believed  in  the  Lord  and  His  servant 
Moses.  Then  sang  Moses  and  the  children  of  Israel 
this  song  unto  the  Lord.' "  Or  again 8 — and  the 
passage  reminds  us  still  more  strongly  of  both  Philo 
and  Christian  Gospel — "  Our  Father  Abraham  came 

lDe  Abr.  46. 

*  Comp.  Schechter,  op.  cit.,  Introduction. 

*  Comp.  Mekilta  33*,  ed.  Friedmann. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PHILO          251 

into  the  possession  of  this  world  and  the  world  here- 
after only  by  the  merit  of  his  faith." 

What  is  new  in  the  Christian  position  is  not  the 
magnifying  of  faith;  it  is  the  severance  of  faith  from 
the  law  and  the  particular  faith  which  is  magnified. 
Philo,  and  the  rabbis,  too,  believed  that  faith  was  the 
goal  of  virtue,  and  the  culmination  of  the  moral  life; 
but  faith  to  them  implied  the  sanctification  of  the 
whole  of  life,  the  love  of  God  "  shown  in  obedience  to 
a  law  of  conduct."  Paul,  however,  hating  the  law, 
set  up  a  new  faith  in  the  saving  power  of  Jesus 
and  in  certain  beliefs  about  him,  which  afterwards 
were  crystallized,  or  petrified,  into  merciless  dogmas, 
contrary  alike  to  the  Jewish  ideas  of  God  and  of  life. 
The  new  religion,  when  it  was  denationalized,  inevi- 
tably became  ecclesiastical:  for  as  the  national  regu- 
lation of  life  was  rejected,  in  order  to  ensure  some 
kind  of  uniformity,  it  had  to  bind  its  members  to- 
gether by  definite  articles  of  belief  imposed  by  a  cen- 
tral authority.  The  true  alternative  was  not  between  a 
legal  and  a  spiritual  religion — for  every  religion  must 
have  some  external  rule — but  between  a  law  of  con- 
duct and  a  law  of  belief.  Philo  and  the  rabbis  chose 
the  former  way;  Paul  and  the  Church,  the  latter. 
Christian  theology,  no  less  than  the  Christian  concep- 
tion of  religion,  exhibits  also  a  complete  breach  with 
the  Jewish  spirit  of  Philo.  In  the  Epistles  there  are, 
indeed,  in  many  places  doctrines  of  the  Logos  in  the 
same  images  and  the  same  Hebraic  metaphors  as 
Philo  had  worked  into  his  system;  but  their  purport 


252    PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

is  entirely  changed  by  association  with  new  un-Jewish 
dogmas.  Philo,  allegorizing,1  had  seen  the  holy  Word 
typified  in  the  high  priest,  and  in  Melchizedek,  the 
priest  of  the  Most  High;  he  had  called  it  the  son 
of  God  and  His  first-born.  Paul,  dogmatizing,  ex- 
alts Jesus  Christ,  the  incarnate  Word,  above  Mel- 
chizedek and  the  high  priest,  and  calls  on  the  Hebrews 
to  gain  salvation  by  faith  in  the  son  of  God,  who  died 
on  behalf  of  the  sinful  human  race.  Philo,  in  his 
poetic  fancy,  speaks  of  God  associating  with  the  virgin 
soul  and  generating  therein  the  Divine  offspring  of 
holy  wisdom;1  the  Christian  creed-makers  enun- 
ciated the  irrational  dogma  of  the  immaculate  con- 
ception of  Jesus.  So,  too,  the  earliest  philosophical 
exponents  of  Christianity,  Clement  of  Alexandria, 
and  Origen,  may  have  derived  many  of  their  detailed 
ideas  from  Philo,  but  they  converted — one  might 
rather  say  perverted — his  monotheistic  theology  into 
a  dogmatic  trinitarianism.  They  exalted  the  Logos,  to 
Philo  the  "  God  of  the  imperfect,"  and  a  second-best 
Deity,  to  an  equal  place  with  the  perfect  God.  For 
man,  indeed,  he  was  nearer  and  the  true  object  of 
human  adoration.  And  this  not  only  meant  a  de- 
parture from  Judaism;  it  meant  a  departure  from 
philosophy.  The  supreme  unity  of  the  pure  reason 
was  sacrificed  no  less  than  the  unity  of  the  soaring 
religious  imagination.  The  one  transcendental  God 

1  Comp.  L.  A.  III.  26,  and  Chapter  V,  above,  p.  154. 
*De  Cherubim  12. 


253 


became  again,  as  He  had  been  to  the  Greek  theolo- 
gians, an  inscrutable  impersonal  power,  who  was 
unknown  to  man  and  ruled  over  the  universe  by  His 
begotten  son,  the  Logos.  The  sublimity  of  the  He- 
brew conception,  which  combines  personality  with 
unity,  was  lost,  and  the  harmony  of  the  intellectual 
and  emotional  aspirations  achieved  by  Philo  was 
broken  straightway  by  those  who  professed  to  follow 
him.  The  skeleton  of  his  thought  was  clothed  with 
a  body  wherein  his  spirit  could  never  have  dwelt.  It 
was  the  penalty  which  Philo  paid  for  vagueness  of 
expression  and  luxuriance  of  words  that  his  works 
became  the  support  of  doctrines  which  he  had  com- 
bated, the  guide  of  those  who  were  opposed  to  his 
life's  ideal. 

The  experience  of  the  Church  showed  how  right 
was  Philo's  judgment  when  he  declared  that  the  re- 
jection of  the  Torah  would  produce  chaos.  The 
fourth  and  fifth  centuries  exhibit  an  era  of  unparal- 
leled disorder  and  confusion  in  the  religious  world,1 
sect  struggling  with  sect,  creed  with  creed,  churches 
rising  and  falling,  dogmas  set  up  by  councils  and 
forced  upon  men's  souls  at  the  point  of  the  Roman 
sword !  And  out  of  this  straggling  mass  of  beliefs  and 
fancies,  theologies  and  superstitions,  sects  and  polit- 
ical forces,  there  arose  a  tyrannical,  dogmatic  Church 
which  laid  far  heavier  burthens  on  men's  minds  than 
ever  the  most  ruthless  Pharisee  of  the  theologian's 

1  Comp.  Gibbon,  "  Decline  of  the  Roman  Empire,"  ch. 
15. 


254    PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

imagination  had  laid  upon  their  body  and  spirit. 
The  yoke  of  the  law  of  Moses,  sanctifying  the  life,  had 
been  broken;  the  fiat  of  popes  and  the  decrees  of 
synods  were  the  saving  beliefs  which  ensured  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven!  Was  it  to  this  that  the  alle- 
gorizing of  the  law,  the  search  for  the  spirit  beneath 
the  letter,  the  reinterpretation  of  the  holy  law  of 
Moses  in  the  light  of  philosophical  reason,  had 
brought  Judaism  ?  And  was  the  association  of  Jewish 
religion  with  Greek  philosophy  one  long  error  ?  That 
would  be  a  hard  conclusion,  if  we  had  to  admit  that 
Judaism  cannot  stand  the  test  of  contact  with  for- 
eign culture.  But  in  truth  the  Hellenistic  interpre- 
tation of  the  Bible,  so  long  as  it  was  genuinely  philo- 
sophical, remained  loyal  to  Judaism.  Only  when  it 
became  hardened  into  dogma,  fixed  not  only  as  good 
doctrine,  but  as  the  only  saving  doctrine,  as  the  tree 
of  life  opposed  to  the  Torah,  the  tree  of  death — only 
then  did  it  become  anti-Jewish,  and  appear  as  a  bas- 
tard offspring  of  the  Hebraic  God-idea  and  Greek 
culture.  Nor  should  it  be  forgotten  that  the  Chris- 
tian theology  and  the  Christian  conception  of  religion 
are  a  falling  away  also  from  the  highest  Hellenic  ideas ; 
for  to  Plato  as  well  God  was  a  purely  spiritual  unity, 
and  religion  "  a  system  of  morality  based  upon  a  law 
of  conduct  and  touched  with  emotion."  In  Philo,  as 
we  have  seen,  the  Hebraic  and  Hellenic  conceptions 
of  God  touch  at  their  summits  in  their  noblest  ex- 
pressions; the  conceptions  of  Plato  are  interfused 
with  the  imagination  of  the  prophets.  The  Christian 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PHILO          255 

theology  was  a  descent  to  a  commoner  Hellenism — 
or  one  should  rather  call  it  a  commoner  syncretism — 
as  well  as  to  an  easier,  impurer  Hebraism. 

It  must  not  be  put  down  to  the  fault  of  the  Septua- 
gint  or  the  allegorists  or  Philo  that  the  Alexandrian 
development  of  Judaism  led  on  to  Koman  Chris- 
tianity. It  is  to  be  ascribed  rather  to  the  infirmity 
of  human  nature,  which  requires  the  ideas  of  its  in- 
spired teachers  and  peoples  to  be  brought  down  to 
the  common  understanding,  and  causes  the  progress 
towards  universal  religion  to  be  a  slow  growth.  The 
masses  of  the  Alexandrian  Jews  in  his  own  day  cannot 
have  grasped  his  teaching;  for  Philo,  to  some  de- 
gree, lived  in  a  narrow  world  of  philosophical  ideal- 
ism, and  he  did  not  calculate  the  forces  which  op- 
posed and  made  impossible  the  spread  of  his  faith  in 
its  integrity.  He  was  aiming  at  what  was  and  must 
for  long  remain  unattainable — the  establishment 
among  the  peoples  of  philosophical  monotheism. 

No  man  is  a  prophet  in  his  own  land — or  in  his 
own  time — and  because  Philo  has  in  him  much  of  the 
prophet,  he  seems  to  have  failed.  But  it  is  the  burden 
of  our  mission  to  sow  in  tears  that  we  may  reap  in 
joy.  And  the  work  of  the  Alexandrian-Jewish  school 
may  be  sad  from  one  aspect  of  Jewish  history,  but  it 
is  nevertheless  one  of  the  dominating  incidents  of  our 
religious  annals.  It  did  not  succeed  in  bringing  over 
the  world  to  the  pure  idea  of  God,  but  it  did  help  in 
undermining  cruder  paganism.  It  brought  the  nations 
nearer  to  God,  and  it  introduced  Hebraism  into  the 


256    PHILO-JUIXETTS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

thought  of  the  Western  peoples.  It  marked,  there- 
fore, a  great  step  in  the  religious  work  of  Israel;  yet 
by  the  schools  of  rabbis  who  felt  the  hard  hand  of 
its  offspring  upon  their  people  it  was  regarded  as  a 
long  misfortune,  to  be  blotted  from  memory.  What 
seemed  so  ominous  to  them  was  that  the  annihilation 
of  the  nation  came  at  the  same  time  as  the  cleavage 
in  the  religion.  Judaism  seemed  attacked  no  less  by 
internal  foes  than  by  external  calamity;  and  was 
likely  to  perish  altogether  or  to  drift  into  a  lower 
conception  of  God,  unless  it  could  find  some  stalwart 
defence.  Hence  they  insisted  on  the  extension  of  the 
fence  of  the  law,  and  abandoned  for  centuries  the 
mission  of  the  Jews  to  the  outer  world.  This  was 
the  true  Galut,  or  exile;  not  so  much  the  political 
exclusion  from  the  land  of  their  fathers,  but  the  en- 
forced exclusion  from  the  mission  of  the  prophets. 
Philo  is  one  of  the  brightest  figures  of  a  golden  age 
of  Jewish  expansion,  which  passed  away  of  a  sudden, 
and  has  never  since  returned.  In  the  silver  and 
bronze  ages  which  followed,  his  place  in  Judaism  was 
obscured.  But  this  age  of  ours,  which  boasts  of  its 
historical  sense,  looking  back  over  the  centuries  and 
freed  from  the  bitter  dismay  of  the  rabbis,  can  ap- 
praise his  true  worth  and  see  in  him  one  who  realized 
for  himself  all  that  Judaism  and  Jewish  culture  could 
and  still  can  be. 

Some  Jewish  teachers  have  thought  that  Philo'a 
work  was  a  failure,  others  that  it  provides  a  warning 
rather  than  an  example  for  later  generations  of  Jews, 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PHILO          257 

proving  the  mischief  of  expanding  Judaism  for  the 
world.  As  well  one  might  say  that  Isaiah's  prophecy 
was  a  calamity,  because  the  Christian  synoptics 
used  his  words  as  evidences  of  Christianity.  What 
is  universal  in  Jewish  literature  is  in  the  fullest 
sense  Jewish,  and  we  should  beware  of  renouncing 
our  inheritance  because  others  have  abused  and  per- 
verted it.  Other  critics,  again,  say  that  Philo  is  weari- 
some and  prolix,  artificial  and  sophisticated.  There 
is  certainly  some  truth  in  this  judgment;  but  Philo 
has  many  beautiful  passages  which  compensate.  Part 
of  his  message  was  for  his  own  generation  and  the 
Alexandrian  community,  and  with  the  passing  away  of 
the  Hellenistic  culture  it  has  lost  its  attraction.  But 
part  of  it  is  of  universal  import,  and  is  very  pertinent 
and  significant  for  every  generation  of  Jews  which, 
enjoying  social  and  intellectual  emancipation,  lives 
amid  a  foreign  culture.  Doubtless  the  position  of 
Philo  and  the  Alexandrian  community  was  to  some 
extent  different  from  that  of  the  Jews  at  any  time 
since  the  greater  Diaspora  that  followed  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  temple.  They  had  behind  them  a  national 
culture  and  a  centre  of  Jewish  life,  religious  and  so- 
cial, which  was  a  powerful  influence  in  civilization 
and  united  the  Jews  in  every  land.  And  this  gave  a 
catholicity  to  their  development  and  a  standard  for 
their  teaching  which  the  scattered  communities  of 
Jews  to-day  do  not  possess.  None  the  less  Philo's 
ideal  of  Judaism  as  religion  and  life  is  an  ideal  for 
our  time  and  for  all  time.  Its  keynote  is  that  Israel 
17 


258    PHILO-JUD^US  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

is  a  holy  people,  a  kingdom  of  priests,  which  has  a 
special  function  for  humanity.  And  the  performance 
of  this  function  demands  the  religious-philosophical 
ordering  of  life.  From  the  negative  side  Philo  stands 
for  the  struggle  against  Epicureanism,  which  in  other 
words  is  the  devotion  to  material  pleasures  and  sen- 
sual enjoyments.  In  adversity,  as  he  notes,  the  race 
is  truest  to  its  ideals,  but  as  soon  as  the  breeze  of  pros- 
perity has  caught  its  sails,  then  it  throws  overboard 
all  that  ennobles  life.  The  hedonist  whom  he  attacks, 
like  the  Epicuros  ( Dmp'SK)  of  the  rabbis,  is  not  the 
banal  thinker  of  one  particular  age,  but  a  permanent 
type  in  the  history  of  our  people.  We  seem  to  spend 
nearly  all  our  moral  strength  in  the  resistance  of  per- 
secution, and  with  tranquillity  from  without  comes 
degradation  within.  Emancipation,  which  should  be 
but  a  means  to  the  realization  of  the  higher  life,  is 
taken  as  an  end,  and  becomes  the  grave  of  idealism. 
With  a  reiteration  that  becomes  almost  wearisome,  but 
which  is  the  measure  of  the  need  for  the  warning, 
Philo  protests  against  this  desecration  of  life,  of  lib- 
erty, and  of  Judaism.  His  position  is,  that  a  free  and 
cultured  Jewry  must  pursue  the  mission  of  Israel 
alike  by  the  example  of  the  righteous  life  devoted  to 
the  service  of  God,  and  by  the  preaching  of  God's 
revealed  word.  This  is  his  "  burden  of  the  word  of 
the  Lord  "  to  the  worldly-wise  and  the  materialists  of 
civilized  Alexandria — and  to  Jews  of  other  lands. 

From  the  positive  side  Philo  stands  for  the  spir- 
itual significance  of  the  religion.     Judaism,  which 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PHILO          259' 

lays  stress  upon  the  law,  the  ceremonial,  and  the  cus- 
toms of  our  forefathers,  is  threatened  at  times  with 
the  neglect  of  the  inward  religion  and  the  hardness 
of  legalism.  Not  that  the  law,  when  it  is  understood, 
kills  the  spirit  or  fetters  the  feelings,  but  a  formal 
observance  and  an  unenlightened  insistence  upon  the 
letter  may  crush  the  soul  which  good  habits  should  nur- 
ture. Eeligion  at  its  highest  must  be  the  expression  of 
the  individual  soul  within,  not  the  acceptance  of  a  law 
from  without.  Although  Philo's  estimate  of  the 
Torah  is  from  the  historical  and  philological  stand- 
point uncritical,  in  the  religious  sense  it  is  finely 
critical  inasmuch  as  it  searches  out  true  values.  Philo 
looks  in  every  ordinance  of  the  Bible  for  the  spiritual 
light  and  conceives  the  law  as  an  inspiration  of  spir- 
itual truth  and  the  guide  to  God,  or,  as  he  puts  it 
sometimes,  "  the  mystagogue  to  divine  ecstasy."  For 
the  crown  of  life  to  him  is  the  saint's  union  with  God. 
In  mysticism  religion  and  philosophy  blend,  for  mys- 
ticism is  the  philosophical  form  of  faith.  Just  as  the 
Torah  to  Philo  has  an  outward  and  an  inward  mean- 
ing, so,  too,  has  the  religion  of  the  Torah;  and  the 
outward  Judaism  is  the  symbol,  the  necessary  bodily 
expression  of  the  inward,  even  as  the  words  of  Moses 
are  the  symbol,  the  suggestive  expression  of  the 
deeper  truth  behind  them.  Yet  mystic  and  spiritual 
as  he  is,  Philo  never  allows  religion  to  sink  into  mere 
spirituality,  because  he  has  a  true  appreciation  and  a 
real  love  for  the  law.  The  Torah  is  the  foundation  of 
Judaism,  and  one  of  the  three  pillars  of  the  universe, 


260    PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

as  the  rabbis  said;  and  neither  the  philosopher  nor 
the  mystic  in  Philo  ever  causes  him  to  forget  that 
Judaism  is  a  religion  of  conduct  as  well  as  of  belief, 
and  that  the  law  of  righteousness  is  a  law  which  must 
be  practiced  and  show  itself  in  active  life.  He  holds 
fast,  moreover,  to  the  catholicity  of  Judaism,  which 
restrains  the  individual  from  abrogating  observance 
till  the  united  conscience  of  the  race  calls  for  it; 
unless  progress  comes  in  this  ordered  way,  the  re- 
former will  produce  chaos. 

Philo  is  conservative  then  in  practice,  but  he  is  pre- 
eminently liberal  in  thought.  The  perfect  example 
himself  of  the  assimilation  of  outside  culture,  he  de- 
mands that  Judaism  shall  always  seek  out  the  fullest 
knowledge,  and  in  the  light  of  the  broadest  culture  of 
the  age  constantly  reinterpret  its  religious  ideas  and 
its  holy  books.  Above  all  it  must  be  philosophical, 
for  philosophy  is  "the  breath  and  finer  spirit  of  all 
knowledge,"  and  it  vivifies  the  knowledge  of  God  as 
well  as  the  knowledge  of  human  things.  Without  it 
religion  becomes  bigoted,  faith  obscurantist,  and  cere- 
mony superstitious.  But  the  Jew  does  not  merely 
borrow  ideas  or  accept  his  philosophy  ready-made 
from  his  environment;  he  interprets  it  afresh  accord- 
ing to  his  peculiar  God-idea  and  his  conception  of 
God's  relation  to  man,  and  thereby  makes  it  a  gen- 
uine Jewish  philosophy,  forming  in  each  age  a  special 
Jewish  culture.  And  as  religion  without  philosophy 
is  narrow,  so,  to  Philo,  philosophy  without  religion 
is  barren;  remote  from  the  true  life,  and  failing  in 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PHILO          261 

the  true  purpose  of  the  search  for  wisdom,  which  is 
to  raise  man  to  his  highest  function.  Philosophy, 
then,  is  not  the  enemy  of  the  Torah:  it  is  its  true 
complement,  endowing  it  with  a  deeper  meaning  and 
a  pro  founder  influence.  Thus  the  saying  runs  in  the 
"  Ethics  of  the  Fathers," 

mm  }-N  ns:>n  p*  DK  irmn  |-K  mm  yx  DK, 
"  If  there  is  no  Torah,  there  is  no  wisdom ;  if  there  is 
no  wisdom,  there  is  no  Torah."  The  thought  that 
study  of  the  law  is  essential  to  Judaism  Philo  shares 
with  the  rabbis,  and  the  Torah  is  in  his  eyes  Israel's 
great  heritage,  not  only  her  literature  but  her  life. 
As  Saadia  said  later,1  "  This  nation  is  only  a  na- 
tion by  reason  of  its  Torah."  It  is  because  Philo 
starts  from  this  conviction  that  his  mission  is  so 
striking,  and  its  results  so  tragical.  The  Judaism 
which  he  preached  to  the  pagan  world  was  no  food 
for  the  soul  with  the  strength  taken  out  to  ren- 
der it  more  easily  assimilated.  He  emphasizes  its 
spiritual  import,  he  shows  its  harmony,  as  the  age 
demanded,  with  the  philosophical  and  ethical  con- 
ceptions of  the  time,  but  he  steadfastly  holds  aloft, 
as  the  standard  of  humanity,  the  law  of  Moses.  The 
reign  of  "  one  God  and  one  law  "  seemed  to  him  not 
a  far-off  Divine  event,  but  something  near,  which 
every  good  Jew  could  bring  nearer.  He  was  op- 
pressed by  no  craven  fear  of  Jewish  distinctiveness ; 
and  the  Biblical  saying  that  Israel  was  a  chosen  peo- 

>m;ni  nuioK  ni. 


262    PHILO-JUD^EUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

pie  was  real  to  him  and  moved  him  to  action.  It 
meant  that  Israel  was  essentially  a  religious  nation, 
nearer  God,  and  possessed  of  the  Divine  law  of  life, 
and  that  it  had  received  the  Divine  bidding  to  spread 
the  truth  about  God  to  all  the  world.  It  was  a  creed 
and  more,  it  was  an  inspiration  which  constantly 
impelled  to  effort.  It  would  be  difficult  to  sum  up 
Philo's  message  to  his  people  better  than  by  the 
verses  in  Deuteronomy  which  he,  the  interpreter  of 
God's  Word  and  the  successor  of  Moses,  as  he  loved 
to  consider  himself,  proclaims  afresh  to  his  own  age, 
and  beyond  it  to  the  congregation  of  Jacob  in  all 
ages,  "  Keep  therefore  my  commandments  and  do 
them ;  for  this  is  your  wisdom  and  your  understand- 
ing in  the  sight  of  the  nations,  which  shall  hear  all 
these  statutes,  and  say,  Surely  this  great  nation  is  a 
wise  and  understanding  people. 

"  For  what  nation  is  there  so  great,  who  hath  God 
so  nigh  unto  them,  as  the  Lord  our  God  is  in  all 
things  that  we  call  upon  Him  for? 

"  And  what  nation  is  there  so  great  that  hath  stat- 
utes and  judgments  so  righteous  as  all  this  law,  which 
I  set  before  you  this  day?  "  (Deut.  iv.  5-7). 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  following  are  the  chief  works  which  have  been 
consulted  and  are  recommended  to  the  student  of  Philo: 

The  standard  edition  of  Philo  is  still  that  of  Thomas 
Mangey,  Philonis  Judcei  opera  quce  reperiri  potuerunt 
omnia."  1742.  Londiai. 

A  far  more  accurate  and  critical  edition,  which  is 
provided  with  introductory  essays  and  notes  upon  the 
sources  of  Philo,  is  in  course  of  publication  for  the 
Berlin  Academy,  by  Dr.  Leopold  Cohn  and  Dr.  Paul  Wend- 
land.  The  first  five  volumes  have  already  appeared,  and 
the  remainder  may  be  expected  before  long.  The  only 
complete  edition  which  contains  the  Latin  text  of  the 
Quaestiones  as  well  as  the  Greek  works  is  that  published 
by  Tauchnitz  in  eight  volumes;  but  the  text  is  not 
reliable. 

There  is  an  English  translation  of  Philo's  works  in 
the  Bohn  Library  (G.  Bell  &  Sons)  by  C.  D.  Yonge  (4 
vols.),  but  it  is  neither  accurate  nor  neat.  The  same  may 
be  said  of  the  German  translation  of  Jost,  but  an  ad- 
mirable German  version  edited  by  Dr.  L.  Cohn  is  now 
appearing,  which  contains  notes  of  the  parallel  passages 
in  rabbinic  and  patristic  literature. 

Works  bearing  on  Philo  and  his  period  generally: 

Schiirer,  "  History  of  the  Jewish  People  at  the  Time 
of  Jesus  Christ  "  (English  translation). 

Siegfried,  Philo  von  Alexandrien  als  Ausleger  der 
heiligen  Schrift. 

Zeller,  Geschichte  der  Philosophic  der  Griechen,  vol. 
Ill,  sec.  2. 

Drummond,  "  Philo-Judaeus  and  the  Jewish  Alexandrian 
School."  2  vols.  (London.) 

Herriot,  Philon  le  Juif. 

Vacherot,  Ecole  d'Alexandrie,  vol.  I. 

Eusebius,  Prceparatio  Evangelica.  ed.  Gilford. 

Freudenthal,  J.,  Hellenistische  Studien. 


264  BIBLIOGKAPHY 

Harnack,  "  History  of  Dogma,"  vol.  I. 
Josephus,  "Wars  of  the  Jews";   "Antiquities  of  the 
Jews." 

Mommsen,  Th.,  "  The  Roman  Provinces." 
Works  bearing  on  the  special  subjects  of  the  different 
chapters : 

I.  THE  JEWISH  COMMUNITY  AT  ALEXANDRIA. 

Graetz,  "History  of  the  Jews"  (Eng.  trans.), 
vol.  II. 

Swete,  "  Introduction  to  the  Septuagint." 
Hirsch,  S.  A.,  "  The  Temple  of  Onias,"  in  the 
Jews'  College  Jubilee  Volume. 

Friedlander,  M.     (Vienna),  Geschichte  der  jii- 
dischen    Apologetik    and    Religiose    Bewegungen- 
der  Juden  im  Zeitalter  von  Jesus. 
II.  THE  LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  PHILO 

Conybeare,  edition  of  De  Vita  Contemplativa. 
(Oxford.) 

Hils,  Les  juifs  en  Rome.  Revue  des  Etudes 
Juives,  vols.  8  and  11. 

Reinach,  Th6odor,  Textes  d'auteurs  grecs  et  re- 
mains rclatifs  au  Judaisme. 

Br6hier  et  Massebieau,  Essai  sur  la  chronologic 
de  Philon.  Revue  de  VHistoire  des  Religions, 
1906. 

III.  PHILO'S  WORKS  AND  METHOD 

Hart,  J.  H.  A.,  "  Philo  of  Alexandria,"  Jewish 
Quarterly  Review,  vols.  XVII  and  XVIII. 

Massebieau,  Du  classement  des  oeuvres  de 
Philon. 

Cohn,  Leopold,  Einteilung  und  Chronologie  der 
Schriften  Philos. 

IV.  PHILO  AND  THE  TORAH 

Treitel,  L.,  Der  Nomos  in  Philon.  Monatsschrift 
fur  Geschichte  und  Wissenschaft  des  Judenthums, 
1905. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  265 

V.  PHILO'S  THEOLOGT 

Montefiore,  C.,  Florilegium  Philonis,  Jewish 
Quarterly  Review,  vol.  VIII. 

Caird,  Ed.,  "  Evolution  of  Theology  in  the 
Greek  Philosophers." 

Heinze,  Die  Lehre  vom  Logos. 

Bucher,  Philonische  Studien. 

Von  Arnim,  Philonische  Studien. 
VI.  PHILO  AS  A  PHILOSOPHER 

Freudenthal,  Max,  Die  Erkenntnisstheorie  von 
Philo. 

Bigg,  "  The  Christian  neo-Platonists  of  Alex- 
andria." 

Bussell,  "The  School  of  Plato." 

Stewart,  J.  A.,  "  The  Myths  of  Plato." 

Guyot,  H.,  Les  reminiscences  de  Philon  chez 
Plotin.  1906. 

Neumark,  Geschichte  der  judischen  Philosophic 
des  Mittelalters. 
VII.  PHILO  AND  JEWISH  TRADITION 

Schechter,  "  Aspects  of  Rabbinic  Theology." 

Taylor,  "  Ethics  of  the  Fathers." 

Ritter,  Bernhard,  Philo  und  die  Halacha.  Bres- 
lau,  1879. 

Dei  Rossi,  "  Meor  Einayim,"  ed.  Cassel. 

Krochmal,  "  Moreh  Nebuchei  Hazeman,"  ed. 
Zunz. 

Frankel,  Z.,  Ueber  den  Einfluss  der  paldstinen- 
sischen  Exegese  auf  die  alexandrinische  Herme- 
neutik. 

Epstein,  Le  livre  des  Jubiles,  Philon  et  le  Mid- 
rasch  Tadsche,  Revue  des  Etudes  Juives,  XXI. 

Ginzberg,  L.,  "  Allegorical  Interpretation,"  in 
Jewish  Encyclopedia. 

Joel,  M.,  Blicke  in  die  Religionsgeschichte. 

Treitel,  L.,  Agadah  lei  Philo.  Monatsschrift 
fur  Oeschichte  und  Wissenschaft  des  Judenthums, 
1909. 


ABBREVIATIONS  USED  FOR  THE 
REFERENCES 

The  references  to  Philo's  works  are  made  according  to 
the  chapters  in  Cohn  and  Wendland's  edition,  so  far  as 
it  has  appeared.  In  referring  to  the  works  which  they 
have  not  edited,  I  have  used  the  pages  of  Mangey's 
edition;  but  I  have  frequently  mentioned  the  name  of 
the  treatise  in  which  the  passage  occurs,  as  well  as  the 
page-number. 

I  have  employed  the  following  abbreviations  in  the 
references: 

L.  A.  Mil Legum  Allegoriae. 

De  Mundi  Op De  Mundi  Opificio. 

De  Sacrif De  Sacrificiis  Abelis. 

Quod   Det Quod  Deterius  Potiori  Insidiatur. 

De  Post.  C De  Posteritate  Caini. 

De  Gigant De  Gigantibus. 

Quod  Deus  Quod  Deus  Sit  Immutabilis. 

De  Agric De  Agricultura. 

De  Plant De  Plantatione. 

De  Ebr De  Ebrietate. 

De  Conf us De  Confusione  Linguarum. 

De  Mlgr De  Migratione  Abraham!. 

Quis  Rer.  Div Quis  Rerum  Divinarum  Heres. 

De  Cong De  Congressu  Eruditorum  Causa. 

De  Fuga De  Fuga  et  Inventione. 

De  Mut.  Nom De  Mutatione  Nominum. 

De  Somn De  Somniis. 

De  Abr De  Vita  Abraham!. 

De  Jos De  Vita  Josephl. 

De  V.  Mos.  .  . .  De  Vita  Mosis. 


ABBREVIATIONS  267 

De  Mon De  Monarchia. 

De  Spec.  Leg De  Specialibus  Legibus. 

De  Sac De   Sacerdotum  Honoribus   et  de 

Victimis. 

De  Leg De  Legatione  ad  Gaium. 

In  Flacc In  Flaccum. 

De  Decal De  Decalogo. 

De  Septen De  Septenario. 

De  Concupisc De  Concupiscentia, 

De  Just De  Justitia. 

De  Exsecr De  Exsecrationibus. 

Ant Josephus:  Antiquities  of  the  Jews, 

tr.  by  Whiston. 

Bell.  Jud Wars  of  the  Jews. 

C.  Apion Contra  Apionem. 

Hist.  Ecclesiast Eusebius:  Historia  Ecclesiastica. 

Praep.  Evang Eusebius:  Praeparatio  Evangelica. 

Photius,  Cod Photius:  Codex. 


INDEX 


Abraham  (see  Lives  of  Abraham 
and  Joseph),  83;  model  of  the 
excellent  man,  244. 

Agrippa  (King),  Philo's  life  covers 
reign  of,  45;  Philo  in  Jerusa- 
lem during  reign  of,  50;  ar- 
rives at  Alexandria,  65;  ad- 
vanced to  Kingdom  of  Judea, 
69;  intercedes  at  Rome  for  his 
people,  69;  death  of,  70. 

Alexander  (the  Great),  a  notable 
figure  in  Talmud,  13;  settles 
Jews  in  Greek  colonies,  14; 
result  of  his  work,  23. 

Alexander  Lysimachus,  Alabarch 
of  Delta  region,  46;  guardian 
of  Antony's  daughter,  46; 
restored  to  honor  after  im- 
prisonment, 70. 

Alexandria,  Jewish  community  at 
(see  Jewish),  13  ff.,  41,  42  f.; 
Jewish  population  of,  under 
Ptolemy  I,  15;  meeting-place 
of  civilizations,  14,  48,  95; 
centre  of  Jewish  life,  15,  129; 
two  sections  occupied  by 
Jews,  16;  prosperity  of  Jews 
in,  21,  22,  32;  anti-Semitic 
literature  and  influences  in, 
22,  62,  67,  74;  Jewish  tradi- 
tion at,  27;  synagogues  at, 
37;  deputation  to  Jerusalem 
from,  41;  rabbis  flee  to,  42; 
Agrippa  finds  a  refuge  at,  51, 
65;  mystical  and  ascetic  ideas 
of  people  at,  55,  59;  philo- 
sophical schools  at,  63,  90,  92, 
94,  140;  development  of  Juda- 
ism in,  77,  255;  Egyptian 
caste-system  adopted  at,  16; 
Jews  of,  popularize  teachings 
of  Bible,  34;  Jews  of,  refer- 
red to,  in  Talmud,  42;  Philo 
forced  into  Sanhedrin  of,  61, 
202,  203  f.;  Philo  member 
of,  61:  disintegration  of 
community  at,  71;  Zealots 
flpc  to.  on  fall  of  Jerusalem, 
71:  replaced  by  Babvlon  as 
centre  of  Jewish  intellect.  73; 
Samaritans  in,  106;  antino- 
mian  movement  in,  130;  pro- 


totypes of  Christian  belief  at, 
155;  Pythagorean  influence  at, 
188;  national  life  and  culture 
undermined  at  (see  National), 
218. 

Alexandrian,  exegesis,  character- 
istic of,  36;  church,  departs 
from  Jewish  standpoint,  72; 
Platonists,  connection  between 
Philo  and  later  school  of,  192; 
schools,  relation  of,  to  Pales- 
tinian, 199  f.,  213;  literature 
in  the  Dark  and  Middle  Ages, 
225  f. 

Allegories  of  the  Laws,  an  al- 
legorical commentary,  74, 
87  f.;  attacks  Stoic  doctrines, 
94;  the  Epistles,  lineal  de- 
scendants of,  247. 

Angels,  doctrine  of,  in  Palestine, 
140;  Philo's  treatment  of,  150- 
1. 

Antiochus  Epiphanes,  Palestine 
passes  to,  17. 

Anti-Semitic,  party,  Flaccus  won 
over  by,  65;  literature  and 
influences  in  Alexandria,  22, 
62,  67,  74;  party,  punishment 
of,  at  Rome,  70. 

Apion,  a  Stoic  leader,  63;  accuses 
Jews,  63,  67;  Philo's  references 
to,  63,  101;  Josephus'  reply 
to,  65. 

Aquila,  new  Greek  version  of  Old 
Testament  made  by,  224;  rab- 
bis' views  of,  224. 

Aristeas,  spirit  of,  glorified  in 
Philo,  77. 

Aristobulus,  first  allegorist  of 
Alexandria,  38;  his  spirit  in- 
herited by  Philo,  77;  on  wis- 
dom, 143";  on  the  Word  of 
God,  146;  difference  between 
Philo  and,  168. 

Artapanus,    Jewish    apologist,    77. 

Assouan,    Aramaic   papyri    at,    15. 

Babylon,  replaces  Alexandria  as 
centre  of  Jewish  intellect,  73; 
Greek  culture  forgotten  in, 
224. 

Bible,   the,    Philo's  interpretation 


270 


INDEX 


and  views  on,  49,  102,  108  ff . ; 
Philo  reveals  spiritual  mes- 
sao-e  of,  83;  authority  of, 
challenged  at  Alexandria,  92; 
wisdom  personified  in,  141, 
142. 

Cabbalah,  the,  Essenes  practi- 
tioners in,  233;  Philo  as  the 
Hellenizer  of,  235. 

Caligula.    See  Gaius. 

Chaldean,  thought,  Philo'9  ac- 
quaintance with,  48. 

Christian,  monastic  communities, 
73;  heresy,  a  severance  from 
main  community,  72;  theolo- 
gians, fail  to  realize  spirit  of 
Philo,  124;  reformers,  and  the 
yoke  of  the  law,  130;  teachers 
preserve  Philo's  works,  156, 
248;  writers  quote  Philo,  223; 
apologists  imitate  allegorical 
method,  245. 

Christianity,  the  movement  to- 
wards, 28;  rise  of,  42;  conflict 
with  Judaism  at  Alexandria, 
72;  Philo's  writings  regarded 
as  testimony  to,  156;  Philo's 
influence  over  religious  phil- 
osophy of,  193. 

Conversion  to  Judaism,  in  Egypt 
and  Rome,  32. 

Courage,  tractate  appended  to 
Life  of  Moses,  75. 

Creation  of  the  World,  descrip- 
tion of.  83. 

Croiset,  criticism  of  Philo  by,  90. 

Decalogue,  The,  contents  of,  83. 
Derash,   Philo  a  master  of,   103. 
Dreams    of    the    Bible,    classed 

with   Allegories  of   the  Laws, 

74. 
Dubnow,  on  Alexandrian  Judaism, 

129. 

Egypt,  Alexander's  march  to,  14; 
settlement  of  Jews  in,  14; 
connection  between  Israel  and, 
14;  visited  by  Plato,  15,  172; 
Diaspora  in,  after  Jeremiah, 
15;  a  favored  home  of  the 
Jews,  21;  conversion  wide- 
spread in  (see  Rome),  32; 
Flaccus,  governor  of,  65; 
Jews  of,  under  same  rule  as 
Palpstine  Jews,  15. 

Egyptian,  populace,  Philo  on,  62: 
thought,  Philo's  acquaintance 
with,  48. 


Epistles,  the  Pauline,  lineal  de- 
scendants of  Allegories  of  the 
Laws,  247;  doctrines  of  the 
Logos  in,  250. 

Essenes,  rise  of,  34,  54;  account 
of,  in  Philo's  works,  78;  type 
of  the  philosophical  life,  79; 
practitioners  in  the  Cabbalah, 
233. 

Flaccus,  won  over  by  Anti-Sem- 
ites, 65;  indifference  of,  to 
attacks  of  Jews,  66;  recall  of, 
66;  Philo  on  the  persecutions 
of,  78. 

Frankel  Z.,  writes  on  Alexandrian- 
Jewish  culture,  241. 

Gaius  (Roman  Emperor),  comes 
to  the  imperial  chair,  65; 
Jews  appeal  directly  to,  66; 
receives  Jewish  deputation,  67; 
death  of,  69. 

Greek  philosophers,  Philo's  rela- 
tion to,  48,  52;  philosophy, 
Philo's  influence  on,  49,  191  f. ; 
colonies,  Alexander  settles 
Jews  in,  14. 

Greek  culture,  various  branches 
of,  47;  the  chief  schools  of,  48, 
54;  fertilizing  influence  of 
ideas  of,  58;  and  Jewish 
Scripture,  76;  neglected  in 
Babylon,  224. 

Haggadah,  the,  in  Philo's  works, 
202,  207  f . ;  antiquity  of,  209  f. ; 
allegorical  speculation  in,  212. 

Halakah,  outcome  of  devotion  to 
Torah,  99;  Palestinian  Jews 
determine,  105;  observance  of 
oral  law  standardized  in,  126; 
relation  of  Philo  to,  202  f. ; 
differences  between  Alexan- 
drian Sanhedrin  and  Pales- 
tinian, 203  f. ;  codification  of, 
207. 

Hebrew,  language,  evidence  of 
Philo's  knowledge  of,  49;  in- 
cluded in  barbarian  languages, 
97;  Philo's  derivations  from, 
50,  101;  race,  the  three  foun- 
ders of,  110  f. ;  tradition, 
Philo  follows,  159;  mind,  Pro- 
fessor Caird  on,  167. 

Hellenism,  of  Palestine,  24,  25; 
of  Alexandria  (see  Greek 
culture),  25;  influence  of,  in 
Palestine,  51;  and  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  Bible,  254; 


INDEX 


271 


New  Testament,  a  combina- 
tion of  Hebraism  and,  247; 
Christian  theology  a  descent 
to  a  commoner,  254. 

Hillel,  Philo  contemporary  with, 
45;  shows  expansion  of  He- 
brew mind,  45;  on  chief  les- 
Bon  of  Torah,  117,  118;  spirit 
of,  shared  by  Philo,  249. 

Humanity,  tractate  appended  to 
a  Life  of  Hoses,  75. 

Incarnation,  notion  of,  not  Jew- 
ish, 166. 

Indian,  thought,  Philo'a  acquaint- 
ance with,  48. 

Isaac.  See  Lives  of  Isaac  and 
Jacob,  83. 

Israel,  Philo's  derivation  of  the 
name,  50,  133;  God's  special 
providence  for,  77;  the  mis- 
sion of,  206,  242. 

Italy,  Philo  visits,  66. 

Jacob.  See  Lives  of  Isaac  and 
Jarob,  83. 

Jeremiah,  prophesies  in  Egypt, 
14;  heard  by  Plato,  15. 

Jerusalem,  Alexander's  visit  to, 
14;  Philo,  on  national  cen- 
tre at,  20,  41,  86;  spiritual 
headship  of,  41;  special  syna- 
gogues for  Alexandrians  in, 
41;  derivation  of  name  of,  50; 
Philo's  sojourn  at,  50;  down- 
fall of,  71;  Judaism  at,  129. 

Jesus,  spread  of  his  teaching,  245; 
his  message  compared  with 
that  of  Philo,  245;  preaching 
of,  effect  on  Jewish  attitude 
to  life,  246;  Paul  sets  up  a 
new  faith  in,  251. 

Jewish,  community  at  Alexandria 
(see  Alexandria),  13  ff.,  72; 
temple  at  Elephantine,  15; 
kingdom  reaches  its  height, 
45;  mind,  religous  conception 
of,  49,  137,  166;  law  and  cere- 
mony, elucidation  of,  49; 
race,  symbol  of  the  unity  of, 
51;  aspiration  toward  "  free- 
dom under  the  law,"  124;  in- 
fluences, dominant  in  Philo, 
133,  189;  philosophy,  eclectic, 
168;  philosophy,  new  school 
of  in  Middle  Ages,  225  f. 

Joseph  (see  Lives  of  Abraham 
and  Joseph),  83;  as  Egyptian 
statesman,  23. 


Josephus,  on  Onias  and  Dositheus, 
18;  inconsistent  accounts  of 
Onias  temple,  19;  on  Egyptian 
Jews,  20;  account  of  Herod's 
temple  by,  41;  writes  a  reply 
to  Apion,  65;  description  of 
Gaius'  conduct  to  Jewish 
deputation,  68;  on  the  spread- 
ing of  Judaism,  115;  indicates 
communication  between 
schools  of  Alexandria  and 
Palestine,  220;  relation  to 
Philo  and  his  works,  222. 

Jowett,  on  sermons,  90. 

Judaism,  genius  of,  46,  196;  Phi- 
lo's exposition  of,  52,  74,  78, 
81,  84,  105;  Philo  protests 
against  desecration  of,  258; 
mysticism  in,  58;  philosophi- 
cal, 72,  230;  Alexandrian  de- 
velopment of,  77,  92;  moral 
teachings  of,  85;  religion  of 
the  law,  106,  116,  260;  Jose- 
phus on  the  spreading  of,  115; 
a  religion  of  universal  validity, 
121,  169;  at  Jerusalem  and 
Alexandria,  129;  catholic  con- 
science of,  130,  131;  Darme- 
steter  on,  132;  Logos  doctrine 
and,  165;  danger  of  union  with 
Gentiles  to,  206;  a  national 
culture,  219;  influences  of 
Jesus  and  Paul  on,  247;  Hel- 
lenistic interpretation  of  the 
Bible  and,  254. 

Judas  Maccabaeus,  struggles 
against  Hellenizing  party,  18. 

Krochmal,  Nachman,  criticism  ot 
Philo,  240. 

Life  of  Moses,  contents  of,  75, 
79  f. ;  an  attempt  to  set  mono- 
theism before  the  world,  80; 
tractates  appended  to,  75. 

Lives  of  Abraham  and  Joseph, 
description  of,  83. 

Lives  of  Isaac  and  Jacob,  con- 
tents of,  83. 

Logos,  143  ff. ;  its  relation  to  God's 
Providence,  143;  meaning  of, 
144-164,  148;  Aristobulus  on, 
146;  regarded  as  the  effluence 
of  God,  149;  spoken  of  as  a 
person,  156;  the  soul,  an  im- 
age of,  178;  development  of 
Philo's  doctrine  of,  192. 


272 


INDEX 


Maimonides,  object  of  his  Moreh, 

91;     principles     of,     99,     229; 

comparison     of     Philo     with, 

229  f. 
Mark   Antony,    Alexander  Lysima- 

chus  in  the  confidence  of,  46. 
Monastic     communities,     supposed 

record  of  Christian,  in  Philo, 

73. 
Moses,    Philo    a    follower    of,    60, 

113  f.;      Philo's     ideal      type, 

79  f . ;   Philo,   as  interpreter  of 

his  revelation,  104,  106  f.    See 

Life  of  Moses. 

National,  centre  at  Jerusalem, 
Philo  on,  20,  41,  86;  life 
undermined  at  Rome  and 
Alexandria,  218. 

Old  Testament,  Septuagint  transla- 
tion of,  25-30;  Aquila's  new 
Greek  version  of,  224. 

Onias,  leader  of  army  of  Egyptian 
monarch,  18;  successor  to 
high  priesthood,  18;  builds 
temple,  18,  19  f. ;  temple  of, 
dismantled,  71;  Jewish  writers 
silent  about  work  of,  19. 

Oral  law,  observance  of,  standard- 
ized in  the  Halakah,  126. 

Origen,  distinguishes  three 
methods  of  interpretation,  76; 
teacher  of  Patristic  school, 
195;  imitates  Philo,  186. 

Palestine,  struggle  for,  between 
Ptolemies  and  Seleucids,  17; 
Hellenism  of,  compared  with 
that  of  Athens,  24,  25;  rabbis 
of,  28;  Philo  visits,  50;  effect 
of  Hellenic  influence  in,  54; 
New  Moon  a  solemn  day  in, 
121;  aims  of  Jewish  thought 
in,  140;  doctrine  of  angels  in, 
140. 

Palestinian  Jews,  under  same 
rule  as  Egyptian  Jews,  15; 
rabbis,  oral  tradition,  34; 
development  of  Jewish  cul- 
ture, 42  f.,  200;  Midrash, 
Philo's  acquaintance  with,  52; 
schools,  relation  existing  be- 
tween Alexandrian  and,  199  f., 
203  f.,  213. 

Paul,  the  most  commanding  of 
the  apostles,  247;  influence  of, 
compared  with  that  of  Jesus, 
247;  rejection  of  the  Torah  by, 


248;    seta  up   a  new  faith   in 
Jesus,  251. 

Pentateuch,  Samaritan  doctrines 
with  reference  to,  106. 

Peshat,  as  a  form  of  interpreta- 
tion, 103. 

Philo,  contemporary  with  Herod, 
45,  50;  family  of,  46;  works  of 
74  ff. ;  philosophical  training 
of,  49;  flees  from  Alexandria, 
60;  meeting  of  Peter  and 
Mark  with,  73;  forced  into 
Sanhedrin  of  Alexandria,  61; 
writings  of,  regarded  as  testi- 
mony to  Christianity,  73,  156; 
influence  of,  over  Christian 
religious  philosophy,  195, 
242  ff. ;  relation  of,  to  Greek 
philosophers,  48,  52;  acquaint- 
ance of,  with  Chaldean  and 
Indian  thought,  48;  his  in- 
terpretation and  views  of  the 
Bible,  49,  102,  108  ff;  evidence 
of  his  knowledge  of  Hebrew 
language,  49;  follows  Hebrew 
tradition,  159,  199  ff. ;  com- 
pared with  Spinoza,  73,  134, 
163;  on  persecutions  •  of  Seja- 
nus  and  Flaccus,  62,  78;  re- 
plies to  attacks  of  stoics,  64, 
95;  stoics'  view  of  God  com- 
pared with  that  of,  185;  goes 
to  Italy,  66;  refers  to  Apion, 
63,  101;  Josephus'  knowledge 
of  the  works  of,  222;  Christian 
teachers  preserve  works  of, 
156,  247;  relation  of,  to  the 
Halakah,  202  f. ;  comparison 
of  Maimonides  with,  229  f. ; 
doctrine  of  the  Logos  (see 
Logos),  144  ff.;  connection  be- 
tween Saadia  and,  226  f. ;  the 
Hellenizer  of  the  Cabbalah, 
235;  opposed  to  missionary  at- 
titude of  Paul,  249. 

Plato,  hears  Jeremiah,  15;  Philo'b 
style  reminiscent  of,  48;  con- 
ception of  the  Law  in,  131; 
Philo's  philosophy  compared 
with  that  of,  170  ff. ;  dominant 
philosophical  principle  of,  174; 
a  mystic,  230;  conception  of 
God  in,  254. 

Ptolemies,  the:  Ptolemy  _I,  in- 
creases number  of  Jewish  in- 
habitants in  Alexandria,  15; 
IV,  gives  Heliopolis  to  Onias, 
16;  admirers  of  Scriptures,  23. 


INDEX 


273 


Questions  and  Answers  to 
Genesis  and  Exodus,  now 
incomplete,  75,  81  f. ;  a  pre- 
liminary study  to  more  elab- 
orate works,  81;  Hebraic  in 
form,  82. 

Repentance,  tractate  appended 
to  Life  of  Moses,  75. 

Rome,  Alexandria  second  to,  14; 
conversion  widespread  in  (see 
Egypt),  32;  Agrippa  an  exile 
from,  51;  power  of  Jews  at, 
62:  Jewish  struggle  with,  220; 
Philo's  apocryphal  meeting 
with  Peter  at,  73;  national 
life  and  culture  undermined 
at  (see  National),  218. 

Saadia,  founds  new  school  of  Jew- 
ish philosophy,  225  f. ;  con- 
nection between  Philo  and, 
226  f. 

Samaritan,  doctrines  with  refer- 
ence to  Pentateuch,  106;  Jew, 
itory  of,  98. 

Sanhedrin,  Hillel,  president  of,  45; 
Philo  forced  into  Alexandrian, 
61;  duties  of  members  of,  61; 
of  Alexandrian  community, 
202;  of  Jerusalem  and  capital 
punishment,  203;  differences 
between  Palestinian  Halakah 
and  Alexandrian.  203  f. 

Sejanus,  Tiberius  falls  under  in- 
fluence of,  62:  Antonia  oppo- 
nent of,  62;  Philo'a  book  on 


persecution  of,  62,  78;  dis- 
grace and  death  of,  65. 

Septuagint,  Hellenistic  develop- 
ment marked  by,  25;  Philo's 
version  of  origin  of,  26;  cele- 
brations in  honor  of,  27;  in- 
fusion of  Greek  philosophic 
ideas  into,  28;  Christianizing 
influence  of,  29;  value  of,  to 
the  cultured  Gentile,  33;  re- 
placed by  new  Greek  version 
of  Old  Testament,  224. 

Solomon,  Wisdom  of,  written  at 
Alexandria,  31. 

Specific  Laws,  The,  description 
of,  83;  socialism  of  Bible  em- 
phasized in,  86. 

Spinoza,  his  ideal  of  life,  53;  com- 
pared with  Philo's,  73,  134, 
163,  239;  on  Jewish  thought, 
137;  influenced  by  Philo,  237  f; 
approaches  Bible  from  critical 
standpoint,  239. 

Stoics,  the  chief  Anti-Semites,  63; 
Philo  replies  to  attacks  of,  64, 
95;  in  conflict  with  Jews  at 
Alexandria,  94;  beliefs  of,  64, 
94,  110,  176;  view  of  God  com- 
pared with  that  of  Philo,  185. 

Synagogues,  at  Alexandria,  16,  37. 

Tiberius     Alexander,     nephew     of 

Philo,  71. 
Tradition,   Jewish,   at   Alexandria, 

27;    Philo   and  Jewish,    199  ff. 

Zealots,   flight   of,   to   Alexandria, 

n. 


£oro 


BALTIMORE,  MD.,  v.  s.  A, 


18 


